In WIRED, Jason Fagone describes a car competition that led to new car model that achieved 207 mpg, using EPA standard test procedures. But, he argues, even “with new government targets looming … the automakers are still resisting radical change…They’re not rethinking the automobile from scratch, from the ground up, like the successful prize teams did. And with a few exceptions,…the automakers are also failing to make significant investments in bringing down the cost of advanced composite materials that are light, strong, and durable. One Nissan executive recently “quipped” to Green Car Reports that the company doesn’t want to make cars out of carbon fiber because it’s too durable: “We don’t need such a material,” the executive said. “That means we cannot sell a new car in 30 years.”
Diet Sodas’ Glass Is Half Empty
The Wall Street Journal reports that sales of low-cal carbonated drinks falling faster than other types. Coca-Cola Co. and rivals had hoped zero-calorie recipes would lift the $75 billion U.S. soda industry after Americans began scaling back on full-calorie soda in the late 1990s amid obesity concerns. For a while they helped: Diet soda’s share of consumption rose from 26% to 31% between 1990 and 2010. Now diet soda is the industry’s weightiest problem. Store sales of zero- and low-calorie soda plunged 6.8% in dollar terms in the 52 weeks through Nov. 23, while sales of regular sodas dropped 2.2%. As a category, diet soda has contracted more than regular soda for three straight years.
New Soda Tax Makes Mexico a Leading Guardian of Public Health
In a Huffington Post commentary on Mexico’s new soda tax, Larry Cohen from the Prevention Institute calls the Mexican legislation “one big step towards slowing and reversing the epidemic of unnecessary and preventable disease.” In a New York Times op ed, Mark Bittman notes that the new taxes result from “an increasing awareness that Mexico’s accelerating public health crisis could hurt its economy, and that only prevention would make practical the universal, single-payer health care system instituted last year.”
FDA Analysis of Tobacco Graphic Warning Labels Found to be Flawed
Graphic warning labels (GWLs) on cigarette packages reduce smoking prevalence. A recent article in Tobacco Control found that that FDA’s approach to estimating the impact of GWLs on smoking rates is flawed. Using data from an analysis of the Canadian GWLs, the authors estimate that if the USA had adopted GWLs in 2012, the number of adult smokers in the USA would have decreased by 5.3–8.6 million in 2013.
Lobbyists Clash Over Proposed E-cigarette Restrictions in D.C.
The Washington Post reported last week that tobacco industry lobbyists and public health advocates battled it out in a D.C. Council committee chamber over whether the city should restrict electronic cigarettes from all of the same places that it bans those rolled with tobacco. In the absence of any federal guidelines on the increasingly popular devices, states and cities have scrambled to decide how to treat them. On Thursday, those for and against a bill to create “parity” with tobacco cigarettes, restricting them from all indoor areas, patios and bus stops, presented wildly different views of the battery-operated inhalers.
FDA Removes Marketing Limits on Diabetes Drug Avandia
The Food and Drug Administration, in a U-turn from its position three years ago, removed restrictions on diabetes drug Avandia, reports the Wall Street Journal, and said it no longer had serious concerns over the drug’s heart-attack risk. One prominent Avandia critic, Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, predicted doctors wouldn’t return to prescribing the drug. “I do not think this decision is in the public interest,” said Dr. Nissen, the clinic’s chairman of cardiovascular medicine and a prominent researcher who presented evidence of the drug’s risk.
Brady Advocates Call on Congress to Expand Law to Online and Gun Show Sales Now
Hundreds of gun violence prevention advocates from around the country took to the halls of Congress last week calling on members to expand effective Brady background checks to online and gun show sales. The lobby day is the culmination of a three-day summit put on by the Brady Campaign that brought in hundreds of leaders and activists in the gun violence prevention movement and related organizations to discuss solutions in the areas of policy, legal action, and health and safety education. The theme of the event is “Make Your Voice Matter.”
Questions About India’s Drug Industry
On May 13, 2013, writes the Indian newspaper The Hindu, Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven felonies relating to drug manufacturing fraud and agreed to cough up $500 million to settle the case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) after eight years of investigation. The vast evidence in the case included inspection reports compiled after multiple US FDA visits to Ranbaxy plants in India — in Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh, and Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. Now two more major Indian pharmaceutical companies are coming under legal scrutiny.
Number of Groups Lobbying on Guns Doubles in 2013
The number of organizations lobbying on firearms, guns and ammunition more than doubled between 2012 and 2013, rising from 35 to 72, reported Open Secrets. Of the 72 groups lobbying in 2013, 22 represented gun rights or gun industry groups and 50 represented public health, law enforcement or governmental associations.
U.S. Demands in Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Text, Published Today by WikiLeaks, Contradict Obama Policy and Public Opinion at Home and Abroad
Secret documents published today by WikiLeaks and analyzed by Public Citizen reveal that the Obama administration is demanding terms that would limit Internet freedom and access to lifesaving medicines throughout the Asia-Pacific region and bind Americans to the same bad rules, belying the administration’s stated commitments to reduce health care costs and advance free expression online, Public Citizen said today.
More information about the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is available at www.citizen.org/tpp
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