Dark Times for Herbal Medicine in Europe

As we reported to you last November [1], thousands of products associated with traditional medicine will become illegal throughout the European Union. And more and more, European Union (EU) legislation influences US domestic policy, especially where health-related laws are concerned. The EU threat to herbal medicine is real, and we urge you to take stock of what’s going so we can collectively jump in the minute anything similar emerges from US regulators. After all, it was that joint action from consumers and health organizations back in 1994 that has kept US regulations over dietary supplements relatively sane. But let’s not forget that this kind of freedom needs to be fought for every step of the way.

Click to read more ...

Baby Bottles and Bisphenol A (BPA)

Many food and liquid containers, including baby bottles, are made of polycarbonate, or have a lining that contains the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is used to harden plastics, keep bacteria from contaminating foods, and prevent cans from rusting.

Click to read more ...

Chris Hellman: The Real U.S. National Security Budget

What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.

Click to read more ...

Obama Surrenders on Settlements

The recent U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israel's settlement policy is a tragicomic way for the Obama administration to abandon its claim to global leadership. But that is what Ambassador Susan Rice’s “nay” vote on February 18 signifies. The battle for a rational foreign policy in Washington has been over for some time. This veto represents surrender

Click to read more ...

Kevin Zeese: Massive Austerity Budgets are Destroying America While the Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Suffers

The race to the bottom has picked up its pace. As state and federal governments face budget deficits, they are cutting critical programs with austerity budgets that will weaken education, health care, essential services and the economy.

Click to read more ...

The Kochs Vs. Mainstreet: the Right-Wing Billionaires' Open War on Everyday Americans

Koch Industries, the private company of the billionaire Koch brothers Charles and David, is an oil and gas, chemicals, cattle, forestry, and synthetics giant -- and also a major force for punishing Main Street Americans. Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke") have directed many millions of their shared $43 billion net worth into a vast propaganda machine that's corrupting American politics in order to reward their pollution-based enterprise.

Click to read more ...

PCBs May Affect in Vitro Fertilization Outcomes

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2011) — According to a new study published February 24 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), serum polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at concentrations found in the general U.S. population are associated with the failure of fertilized embryos to implant in the uterus after in vitro fertilization (IVF). This study may help explain earlier reports of impaired reproduction and increased time to pregnancy among women exposed to PCBs. "Our findings provide insight into a specific time point following conception that determines whether a pregnancy will occur that may be particularly sensitive to PCB exposure," says lead author John Meeker.

Click to read more ...

The “Deficit Problem” Isn’t Financial. It’s Political.

The federal budget deficit and its cumulative cousin, the national debt, are much more political and media phenomena than they are financial. Which isn’t to say that they don’t exist. Obviously, they do. But they have been invested with apocalyptic significance mainly for political purposes: to scare people and to coerce them into reducing the size and the scope of government.

Click to read more ...

Attack of the Commerce Clause

On the afternoon of Jan. 31, Richard A. Epstein was in his office at New York University Law School when a request came in from a conservative website called Ricochet.com. A federal district court judge in Florida had just struck down the Obama Administration's health-care overhaul, and the site wanted Epstein's reaction. Judge Roger Vinson had ruled that in passing the bill last year, Congress exceeded the authority granted it by the so-called Commerce Clause: Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which allows lawmakers "to regulate Commerce … among the several states." For Epstein, 67, a voluble and prolific scholar who for four decades has been arming conservatives with intellectual weaponry to attack regulation, it was an I-told-you-so moment. "The Commerce Clause challenge to Obamacare indeed has legs," he blogged. "The government played table stakes poker, and for the moment it has lost."

Click to read more ...

The Destiny of This Pageant Lies in the Kingdom of Oil

The Middle East earthquake of the past five weeks has been the most tumultuous, shattering, mind-numbing experience in the history of the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire. For once, "shock and awe" was the right description.

Click to read more ...