Pet-Food Recall Expands Yet AgainA month ago, relatively few people in the United States had ever heard of the chemical known as melamine. Fewer still knew that melamine, a chemical used as fertilizer and in the production of plastics and resin, caused kidney failure in dogs and cats. Unfortunately, people are learning all too much about melamine as the presence of the chemical has managed to mysteriously contaminate a huge supply of pet food in the United States.

This week, two more pet-food companies announced voluntary recalls of their products due to fears of melamine contamination. California-based Natural Balance recalled all of its Venison dog products and dry Venison cat food only, regardless of date codes. The recalled products include Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats, and Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.
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Emotions across the Unites States are still raw and unsettled in the aftermath of the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech that claimed the lives of 33 people, including the gunman. The issue of gun control is always a delicate matter, never more so than in the first few days following a high-profile shooting incident, when our primary thoughts are with the victims and their families. Yet, after the deadliest shooting spree in the country’s history, the issue of gun control is simply unavoidable and is likely to command significant attention in the coming weeks.

Advocates of stricter gun-control laws have been severely weakened in recent years by the relentless political machine that is the National Rifle Association (NRA) and, more generally, by a rabid and ever-expanding gun culture in the United States that seems to be rather unique in the Western world. It is especially telling to view the responses to the tragedy that have been lodged by commentators in other nations.
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According to a new report by a corporate watchdog group, Wal-Mart has used a tax loophole to wriggle out of paying more than $2 billion in state taxes since 1999. The report was prepared by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a nonpartisan research and advocacy group that fights for tax fairness.

“Wal-Mart avoided $2.3 billion in state income taxes, cutting its payment to state governments almost in half between 1999 and 2005,” notes the CTJ report. “Over those seven years, Wal-Mart reported $77.4 billion in pretax U.S. profits to its shareholders. But it reported a total state income tax bill of only $2.4 billion, just 3.16 percent of those profits. Had Wal-Mart paid taxes at the statutory state corporate tax rates for the same period, it would have paid $4.7 billion in state income taxes.”
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Reversing the decisions of two Appeals courts, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a highly controversial 5-4 decision that has galvanized abortion foes and frightened abortion-rights advocates. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that opponents of the legislation failed to show that the law “is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of health exception.”

However, what has caught the attention of people on both sides of the issue is some of the language that Justice Kennedy used in composing the majority opinion. “The government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman,” Kennedy wrote at one point, and that “the government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life.” He also refers to the “State’s interest in promoting respect for human life at all stages in the pregnancy.”
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Earlier today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seized all implantable medical devices from New Jersey-based Shelhigh Inc., saying that FDA investigators found “significant deficiencies in the company’s manufacturing processes” that “may compromise the safety and effectiveness of the products, particularly their sterility.”

Among the products in question are pediatric heart valves and conduits, surgical patches, dural patches (for tissue recovery after neurosurgery), annuloplasty rings (for repair of heart valves), and arterial grafts. These products are used in a range of settings, including open-heart surgery, neurosurgery, and abdominal, pelvic, and thoracic surgery. According to the FDA, “Critically ill patients, pediatric patients, and immuno-compromised patients may be at greatest risk from the use of these devices.”
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According to the website of Sciences International (SI), a Virginia-based consulting firm, “Reproductive and endocrine toxicology is one of the most active fields in environmental health, with considerable regulatory activity in the last decade.” SI promises to provide for its clients, among other services, “independent evaluation and interpretation of study findings.”

For eight years, Sciences International has been under contract by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide what the NIH calls “administrative and logistical support” to its experts in the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). Now, however, the so-called independence of SI’s evaluations has come under close scrutiny after it was revealed that the consulting firm has had significant business ties to a wide range of companies in the chemical industry including companies that manufacture chemicals under their review. The Washington Post also reported that all but two employees at the CEHRH worked directly for SI.
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An Italian company has initiated a recall of their olives due to fears of botulism contamination. The manufacturer, Charlie Brown di Rutigliano & Figli, has already distributed the products to its wholesalers, which have provided them to various restaurants and retail outlets in the United States. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company has not been aggressive or diligent enough in providing recall information to its various importers after they announced the recall late last month.

Company officials suspect that their olives may be tainted with the Clostridium botulinum bacterium, which can lead to potentially fatal illness. The brands in question include Borrelli, Bonta di Puglia, Cento, Corrado’s, Dal Raccolto, Flora, Roland, and Vantia. The associated product codes start with the letter “G,” followed by three or four digits. The recall applies to all sizes of cans, glass jars, and pouches of Cerignola, Nocerella, and Castelvetrano olives.
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On March 21, 2005, a little more than two years ago, three Colorado residents–Leslie Weise, Alex Young, and Karen Bauer were forcibly ejected from a public presidential forum about Social Security privatization. Although the taxpayer-funded meeting was open to the public and all three possessed tickets for the event, local organizers, at the behest of White House staffers, decided to remove the three patrons because they arrived in a car with a bumper sticker reading, “No More Blood for Oil.” It was determined that the three “dissenters” could be seen as a potential threat to disrupt the meeting, even though they had not acted in a suspicious, disruptive, or threatening way.

Two separate civil lawsuits have been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of two members of the “Denver Three,” as the ejected Denver residents have become known. The first suit, filed in November of 2005, named local organizers of the event, Jay Bob Klinkerman and Michael Casper, as defendants in the case (Weise v. Casper), claiming that the defendants’ actions “violated plaintiffs’ First and Fourth Amendment rights” for denial of free speech and unlawful search and seizure. The plaintiffs filed a second complaint last month, also in the U.S. District Court for Colorado, naming as defendants Greg Jenkins and other Washington-based White House staffers, who have been accused of orchestrating the ejection of the Denver Three and of “establishing and enforcing a policy to eject persons” from public meetings “on the basis of their viewpoint.” Klinkerman and Casper have also claimed that they were merely acting under orders of the White House staff members who helped organize the event.
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Researchers in England believe that they have discovered the “most clear genetic link yet to obesity in the general population.” According to the study, those with two copies of a particular gene variant face a 70 percent higher risk of being obese when compared to individuals with no copies of that variant. The discovery of the so-called “fat gene” has been hailed as a major breakthrough.

The research, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest medical research charity, appears in the current issue of the journal Science. Scientists from the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter and the University of Oxford first identified a genetic link to obesity after studying 2,000 people with type-2 diabetes plus 3,000 control subjects. “Through this genome-wide study,” the Wellcome Trust reports, “the researchers identified a strong association between an increase in BMI [body mass index] and a variation, or ‘allele,’ of the gene FTO.”
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For diligent used-car buyers, Carfax had for years been viewed as an essential ally. The Virginia-based company, which specializes in auto-history reports, offered consumers access to accident and insurance records that would otherwise not be available to them. However, after it was revealed that Carfax’s reporting did not include data from 22 states plus the District of Columbia, the one-time consumer aide was slapped with a huge class-action lawsuit.

Now, the proposed settlement of that class action, which affects 10 million customers, has come under fire from a variety of consumer watchdogs and legal experts. “It’s like advertising for Carfax,” consumer attorney Bernard Brown told the Kansas City Star, calling the settlement little more than a “Carfax promotional piece.” “These consumers get a coupon for the very Carfaxes that the lawsuit said do not have any real value.”
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