The New York Times weighs in on pending amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act: A bill passed by the House and ostensibly designed to streamline the Food and Drug Administration is loaded with bad provisions and may not even be necessary. The Senate should either eliminate or rewrite the flawed provisions before passing […]
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This study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University finds that people who live in certain zip codes in Pennsylvania with fracking were hospitalized more often than people who live in a "control county" that does not have fracking. The study says that the "data suggest that [fracking] wells, which dramatically increased […]
The New York Times reports: The Treasury Department has begun a study of online marketplace lenders, as the federal government looks to determine whether regulations are keeping up with the rapidly growing industry. As many traditional banks have retreated from making small loans to businesses and consumers, a flood of online lenders have filled the […]
"For many households, the monthly rent check is so big that it eats up the majority of their paycheck — and the burden is growing," observed the Washington Post this week, in a story discussing a recent Harvard report on the subject and explaining that 11 million Americans, or about a quarter of all renters, spent more […]
The blog Credit Slips reports today: Yesterday, Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia issued a very cogent 70-page opinion in the case of the CFPB v. Frederick Hanna & Associates, a large collection law firm with offices in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. The opinion denies Hanna's motion to dismiss in its […]
The Wall Street Journal reports today that bankers and housing advocates are teaming up in effort to ease mortgage access for borrowers with weaker credit. A rare coalition of mortgage lenders and left-leaning consumer advocates are calling on the Obama administration to ease up on lawsuits they say are driving banks away from making loans […]
The Hill reports: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has returned more than $10 billion to consumers who were scammed since the watchdog agency opened its doors four years ago. CFPB Director Richard Cordray revealed the results of the relief the agency has provided to more than 17 million consumers on Wednesday in his semi-annual […]
Bloomberg reports: Millions of people search online for information about symptoms and prescription drugs. Patterns in their searches might reveal previously unknown side effects of medications. The Food and Drug Administration is talking to Google about how the search engine could help the agency identify previously unknown side effects of medications. Agency officials held a […]
In October, the Supreme Court will hear a case called Spokeo v. Robins, which poses the question, as formulated by the defendant company, "whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private […]
By Stephen Gardner Nestlé has been sued in California state court for shenanigans involving products of its Gerber division. Nestlé sells a line of products called Gerber Graduates, aimed at parents whose small children have just started eating solid foods. Because parents understandably want to give healthy snacks to their kids, Nestlé wants to grab […]