Clipmarks | BobbyDelray's 'fda' clips

Bottled water... 5 reasons to kick the habit

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:53:34 GMT

clipped by: BigBadWolf

Clip Source: lighterfootstep.com

Bottled water is healthy water -- right?

That's what the marketers would have us believe

Bottled water isn't a good value

No healthier than tap water

Bottled water means garbage

Bottled water means less attention to public systems

The corporatization of water

What can you do?

In reality, bottled water is just water.

In theory, bottled water in the United States falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight.

there's very little empirical evidence which suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent.

Consider taking Food and Water Watch's No Bottled Water Pledge. Conserve water wherever possible, and stay on top of local water issues.

Want to know more? Start with the Sierra Club's fact sheet on bottled water.

Tags: health, water

Are The Chinese Trying To Tell Us Something?

Sun, 20 May 2007 16:55:44 GMT

clipped by: DizzyDezzi
clipper's remarks: This is scary. My family does not live and can not yet afford to move to a property where we can produce our own food; particularly, vegetables and fruits. We don't live near a farmer's market. So, we rely, like many Americans, on our local commissary or supermarket. The way I read this article, it's telling us there is very little we can do about this problem of tainted food and other necessities because by squashing China's imports we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. So it seems as if China is sending us poison--because they can. And there is nothing we can do about it. Even a vegan diet is not immune to potential poisoning unless you totally go homegrown.

Clip Source: www.mercurynews.com

Why U.S. doesn't stop tainted food from China

WASHINGTON - Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

Dead pets and melamine-tainted food notwithstanding, change will prove difficult, policy experts say, in large part because U.S. companies have become so dependent on the Chinese economy that tighter rules on imports stand to harm the U.S. economy, too.

Tags: china, poison, fda, food, pets

Tell the FDA, "Don't mess with our chocolate!"

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:20:32 GMT

clipped by: bignosemousie
clipper's remarks: This just opens the door for all the cheaper yummy chocolate to become cheaper crappy chocolate. Unless you want to pay Godiva prices for decent chocolate, take the time to tell the FDA not to change the requirements.

Go to the source for info and how to help. Deadline for public comment is April 25, 2007.

Clip Source: www.typetive.com

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but the FDA controls what fits under the definition of chocolate for sale in the United States.

The rules currently state (basically) that chocolate must contain cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Other things can be in there, like milk fat and milk solids to make milk chocolate and a small amount of milk fat can be added to dark chcoolate as well. The new proposal would allow products that contain NO COCOA BUTTER to be call chocolate.

Why is the Chocolate Manufacturers Association pushing for this? Because it’s more cost efficient.

You know what? The FDA doesn’t have to give the CMA what they want. You have the power to reject this ... but you have to tell the FDA!

It’s never been easier ... just visit the FDA’s public comment portion of their website and tell them that you don’t want to lose real chocolate in a sea of wax and tropical oils. You can fill out the form, or send them a letter or a fax.

Tags: chocolate, fda, cma, food

How Old Is Your Brain? - Take the Test

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:41:14 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: experimentalman.com

How Old Is Your Brain?

Clip Source: www.mostphotos.com

Clip Source: experimentalman.com

Take the Test Yourself…!

Check out today’s “Natural Selection” column on Portfolio.com — it’s about a battery of tests I took that measures your noggin for cognition and memory, and compares the results against normal brains of various ages, and against those with diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The tests are used to see if drugs in clinical trials for neural diseases are improving cognition and memory. The FDA uses the tests as part of their approval process for these new drugs.

Clip Source: www.portfolio.com

Take the Test

View Interactive Feature

Eager to know your "brain age" and see how agile your gray matter is? Here's your chance

Insects (the original white meat)

Tue, 27 May 2008 10:49:17 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

You bite into a piece of candy and find a cricket leg. Eewwww. Or notice that raisin in a bowl of cereal has legs and wings. Bam, down the disposal it goes. Such filth in foods is supposedly illegal, but the Food and Drug Administration’s actual tolerance is far from zero. FDA rules allow up to 60 insect fragments on average in a composite of six 100-gram chocolate samples. For peanut butter, it’s OK to have up to 30 insect pieces per 100 grams. Grossed out yet?

In the industrialized world, most people find the idea of eating insects repugnant. Processed foods containing bug bits tend to reflect poor sanitation. Because bugs can host disease-causing germs, insects tainting the food supply pose a health risk

Yet in many parts of the world, diners actually desire insects. Youngsters in central Africa may down ants or grubs while at play. Urbane snack-seeking consumers throng street vendors throughout Southeast Asia to buy fried crickets.

Tags: food habits, insects, white meat

Gene Therapy for Tooth Decay

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:46:44 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.mrcad.com

Clip Source: www.positivefuturist.com

A biotech company has won approval to conduct human trials of a dental treatment that uses genetically modified bacteria to prevent cavities for a lifetime, after resolving regulators' safety concerns.

Oragenics Inc. said Tuesday that trials of the product, known as Replacement Therapy, would get underway early next year.

The Oragenics' therapy replaces the bacteria that convert sugar to lactic acid, which causes cavities, with genetically modified bacteria that do not produce lactic acid. The company says the one-time application, which is swabbed directly onto the teeth, takes about a year to fully take effect.

"You have to appreciate that replacement therapy has never been done before; this is FDA's first impression of it,"

The FDA, which declined to comment Tuesday

The agency was also concerned about the possibility the bacteria could be spread by kissing or other close contact.

Soponis said he hopes to see Replacement Therapy on the market in the next four to five years.

Tags: genethrapy, dental therapy

Hershey's is going cheap and hoping you won't notice

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:55:49 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: The FDA, in it's attempt to protect us from deceptive advertising practices, has forced Hershey's to admit they no longer use cocoa butter in their products.

However, FDA ruling will not prevent Hershey from practicing deception. The packaging looks exactly the same. They are selling an inferior product and they’re not even telling anyone.

Do you feel betrayed yet?

In a statement, Hershey’s told TODAY that consumers love its products and all its candies are clearly labeled. It still offers real milk chocolate in Hershey’s Kisses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and its classic chocolate bar.

Most corporations deal with increasing cost by raising their prices, Hershey's substituted inferior ingredients and tried to slip it past us.

Buyer beware!

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Apparently not in some Hershey’s products that contained milk chocolate for years, and that has passionate chocolate aficionados fighting mad.

Products such as Whatchamacallit, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackel no longer have milk chocolate coatings, and Hershey’s Kissables are now labeled “chocolate candy” instead of “milk chocolate.”

What’s going on here? On Friday, TODAY consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman reported that Hershey’s has switched to less expensive ingredients in several of its products. In particular, cocoa butter — the ingredient famous for giving chocolate its creamy, melt-in-your-mouth texture — has been replaced with vegetable oil.

The removal of cocoa butter violates the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s definition of milk chocolate, so subtle changes have appeared on the labels of the Hershey’s products with altered recipes. Products once labeled “milk chocolate” now say “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey.”

Tags: deceptive advertising, fda

Stevia the Illegal Sugar Substitute

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:25:11 GMT

clipped by: Honoradele

Clip Source: www.iamthewitness.com

Stevia is a plant from Paraguay with an extremely sweet leaf. The leaf contains a chemical (stevioside) that is hundreds of times as sweet as sugar. People in Paraguay and Brazil have been using it as a sweetening agent for hundreds of years.

A lot of natural chemicals are poisonous, so it possible that stevioside is dangerous. To protect Americans from danger, the FDA has made it illegal to use stevia as a sugar substitute.

Scientists in Japan and other nations studied stevia, and they did not find any harmful aspects to it. Japan has been using stevia since the 1970's, such as a sweetener for Diet Coke.

The FDA claims that stevia may be dangerous, and that further study is needed. OK, so when will they do the further study? We have been waiting and waiting....

Is the FDA protecting you and me? Or are they protecting Aspartame?

Why is stevia legal as a "dietary supplement"?

Tags: law, stevia, fda aspertame

Better Than Blood?

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:34:45 GMT

clipped by: usmc6531

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

A man-made, pure-white compound called Oxycyte carries oxygen 50 times as effectively as our own blood. Researchers are betting that it’s the best way to treat America’s leading cause of accidental death: traumatic brain injury

Grace LeClair had just finished eating dinner with friends when she got the phone call every parent dreads. The chaplain at the Medical College of Virginia was on the other end. “Your daughter has been in a serious accident. You should come to Richmond right away.” LeClair was in Virginia Beach at the time, a two-hour drive from 20-year-old Bess-Lyn, who was now lying in a coma in a Richmond hospital bed.

The friend who was with Bess-Lyn has since filled in the details of that day in March. The two women were bicycling down a steep hill, headed toward a busy intersection, when Bess-Lyn yelled that her brakes weren’t working and she couldn’t slow down. Her friend screamed for her to turn into an alley just before the intersection. But Bess-Lyn didn’t turn sharply enough and crashed, headfirst, into a concrete wall. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, Bess-Lyn was officially counted among the 1.5 million Americans who will suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) this year.

Bess-Lyn’s mom was halfway to Richmond when she received a second call, this time from a doctor. “He was telling me that she had a very serious injury, that she had to have surgery to save her life and that if I would give permission, they would use this experimental, not-approved-by-the-FDA drug,” Grace LeClair recalls. “He said that it would increase the oxygen supply to her brain. To me that only made sense, so I said yes.”

Tags: blood, science

Generics: Just As Good?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:38:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

The Generic Pharmaceutical Assn. touts them with a slightly catchier slogan: "Same Medicine. Same Results." But sometimes, patients and their doctors beg to differ.

n a number of cases documented in medical journals and recounted in interviews with physicians, a generic version of what is often called a "pioneer" drug simply doesn't appear to work as well for many patients.

"The reasonable people I know aren't pounding their fists saying all generics are bad," Kowey said. "They're saying to the FDA, 'C'mon guys, there may be some situations in which [these differences] may turn out to be important.' "

Jillian Bealer of Buffalo, N.Y., is a fan of generics and the savings they bring. But she says her faith in their equivalence to brand-name drugs was shaken by a nasty recurrence of depression she suffered recently when she switched to a new generic for Wellbutrin XL.

Tags: maybe, not, sometimes

Fluorescent tattoos

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:14:04 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.uniquepicturehunter.com

Blacklight or UV tattoos can be seen under a black light but are invisible or only partially visible in normal light. The ink received USFDA approval in 1995 for use in animals, plants and fish for the purpose of tracking migration, growth patterns, breeding habits… No other tattoo inks have received approval in this way. This ink is most likely the safest ink on the market. It contains NO phosphors. it is not radioactive, it does not contain EverGlow, it does not cause cancer and it’s FDA approved.

You say Tomato.. I say Salmonella!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:53:04 GMT

clipped by: pitim

Clip Source: myitthings.com

Hi I don't mean to scare anyone but if you didn't hear the news 23 people have been hospitalized with Salmonella after eating raw tomato. The majority of the infections have occurred in New Mexico and Texas, but cases also have been reported in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The FDA is recommending limiting raw tomato consumption to those that are not the likely source of the outbreak, including cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with their vine attached and homegrown tomatoes.

So watch it out there...

Tags: food, disease

Many negative drug studies don't see print

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:24:35 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Perhaps one of the reasons so many people on antidepressants, commit suicide. What does that say about cloning research. The public are obviously seen as nothing more as a market.
What do you do if someone is depressed? Stun them with pharmaceuticals, and hope they don't wake up, or are too disoriented to argue. Of course you can always expect doctors to do what is right according to the information that is provided to them.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Gene Emery

Nearly a third of antidepressant drug studies are never published in the medical literature and nearly all happen to show that the drug being tested did not work, say US researchers.

How good is the evidence for our medications?

the US Food and Drug Administration has a registry in which companies are supposed to log details of their drug tests before the experiments are begun.

Dr Erick Turner of the Oregon Health & Science University and colleagues, who report their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine

They could see which experiments approved by the FDA between 1987 and 2004 were ultimately publicised in the medical literature

Of the 74 studies that started for the 12 antidepressants only 38 produced positive results for the drug

All but one of those studies were published

However, when it came to the 36 studies with negative or questionable results, as assessed by the FDA, only three were published

another 11 were turned around and written as if the drug had worked.

IMPORTANT: Stop the cough medicine for young chidren

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:41:12 GMT

clipped by: dfiskey
clipper's remarks: I've gotten these email 'forwards for years, and always thought it was one of those scammy BS type emails....i now know better.
I know I've uses Triaminic a number of times on my daughter during the first 3 years of her life-- that will obviously stop now, and my younger daughter will just have to suffer through those winter time colds (and so will i with the sleepless nights that those colds bring about..) Scary stuff

Clip Source: health.yahoo.com

FDA Experts Urge Ban on Cold Medicines for Young Children

SATURDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health experts on Friday urged the federal Food and Drug Administration to consider banning the sale of over-the-counter cough and cold medicines for young children.

The recommendation, from FDA safety officials, would apply to decongestant use in children under 2, and antihistamines in those younger than 6, according to agency documents released Friday, the Associated Press reported.

The products include approximately 800 popular medicines that are sold in the United States under names like Toddler's Dimetapp, Triaminic Infant and Little Colds, The New York Times reported.

In the safety review released Friday, the FDA experts recommended that all infant cough and cold products be removed from the market. They also recommended that the sizes of the droppers, cups and syringes packaged with products be standardized to reduce the possibility of confusion and overdose, the Times said.

Tags: health, colds, kids, death, fda, medicine

I'll Have My Cloned Steak Medium Rare Please

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:31:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

The cloned steak was served medium rare.

After years of research, meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are moving toward supermarkets, restaurants and backyard barbecues. The Food and Drug Administration recently declared the fare safe to eat, although it took scientists 678 pages to make their case. They said the meat was so much like regular beef that special labeling would be unnecessary.

Thousands of consumers, unswayed by the promise of genetically superior steaks, have written the agency in opposition. Still, cloned products could become part of the food supply by year's end.

The general public has been shielded from cloned meat by a voluntary moratorium issued by the FDA in 2001. But six intrepid diners agreed to participate in cloned beef's debut on the culinary scene in a private dinner convened by The Times.

Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation" and self-described omnivore, said: "I'd rather eat my running shoes than eat meat from a cloned animal."

Tags: food, cloning, safety, research