Category: Other Developments
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Anti-Tobacco Law Professor Predicts Opening of Food Litigation Floodgates
George Washington University Law School Professor John Banzhaf, who teaches “public interest” law, has issued a press release discussing recent class action claims against ConAgra over its “All Natural” cooking oil representations. According to Banzhaf, such litigation could be in the vanguard of many similar lawsuits against food companies that would be targeted by “both…
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ACLU Raises Privacy Concerns over ID Scanning
An August 23, 2011, USA Today article has highlighted privacy concerns over how bars, restaurants and night clubs use ID scanners to track and share consumer data with other venues, including whether an individual patron “caused a problem” or “started a fight.” As the purveyor of one system explained to journalist Trevor Hughes, the new networked…
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Anti-Nanotech Group Targets Researchers
A group known as “Individualities Tending Toward Savagery” (ITS) has reportedly claimed responsibility for injuring two Mexican nanotechnology researchers with a parcel bomb, putting scientists around the world on alert. According to an August 21, 2011, Chronicle of Higher Education article, the group has a manifesto that cites Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, as an inspiration…
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Rudd Center Study Suggests FOP Cereal Box Claims Are Misleading
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has published a study claiming that parents misinterpret nutrition-related health claims used on children’s cereal boxes. Jennifer L. Harris, et al., “Nutrition related claims on children’s cereals: what do they mean to parents and do they influence willingness to buy?,” Public Health Nutrition, August 2, 2011. Researchers…
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Foreign Student Guestworkers Complain of Working Conditions and Pay at Hershey Plant
In an August 17, 2011, letter to the U.S. Department of State filed on behalf of more than 400 foreign guest workers recruited by the Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA) to work for the Hershey Chocolate Co., the National Guestworker Alliance seeks the revocation of CETUSA’s sponsor status as a provider of J-1 visas,…
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Food Policy Issues to Be Focus of October 2011 Conference
The Consumer Federation of America will hold its 34th Annual National Food Policy Conference on October 3-4, 2011, in Washington, D.C. Topics will include imported food safety, federal legislative priorities, food marketing and social media, and the global food system.
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Rudd Center Announces Fall 2011 Seminar Series
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has announced its fall 2011 Seminar Series featuring the interdisciplinary work of public policy and health advocates, as well as legal and industry insights. Speakers in the series will include (i) Legacy President and CEO Cheryl Healton (Lessons Learned from the Tobacco Wars for Products Which…
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IOM Report Targets Legal Strategies for Addressing Childhood Obesity Prevention
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently issued a summary of an October 21, 2010, workshop titled “Legal Strategies in Childhood Obesity Prevention,” where public policy experts and stakeholders discussed national, state and local health initiatives that employ legal strategies “to bring about change as well as the challenges in implementing these changes.” The workshop summary…