A Slate reporter was bowled over by the pungent chemical aroma her new IKEA sofa emitted after she took of the package. She carved off a little piece of the mattress foam and sent it to a lab, which found it contained a funky flame retardant called “chlorinated tris.” This is interesting as brominated tris was banned from children’s sleepwear in 1977 after studies showed it was a skin-absorbable carcinogenic. [More]
safety
Special Lovemaking Coffee Can Cause Sudden Drop In Blood Pressure, Lovemaking
By 6.21.10
If you want to be a passionate lover, or at least a noticeably hyper one, of course you should drink a lot of coffee before hitting the sheets. That’s just common sense. But the FDA says that a specially marketed aphrodisiac coffee, Magic Power Coffee, can interfere with prescription drugs and cause a dramatic loss of blood pressure. [More]
Hypocritical Adults As Likely As Reckless Teens To Text While Driving
By 6.19.10
Great news, teens! Next time an adult tells you not to text while driving, call them a dangerous hypocrite. For authority, tell them about the recent Pew Internet & American Life Project, which found that being in a car could be much more dangerous than you thought. [More]
Johnson & Johnson Hired Fake Shoppers To Buy Up Bad Motrin, Avoid Public Recall
By 6.14.10
Ever since the FDA and Congress started asking Johnson & Johnson to explain why it keeps recalling medicine, there have been references to an unpublicized “recall” that happened in November 2008. Last month, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a J&J executive swore that the company didn’t mean to mislead anyone. It turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate: Bloomberg has obtained emails from J&J’s company, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, that show executives knew the secret recall would trigger an FDA reaction if the agency got wind of its full scope. [More]
New Recalls Of Death And Dismay
By 6.11.10
Watch out for these products! They might kill or harm you, so they have been recalled. [More]
Consumer Reports Shows Some Love For The Ove Glove
By 6.7.10
I always get nervous when I find out that our labcoat-loving kin at Consumer Reports are about to test a product that I’ve grown to be fond of. It’s like taking one of those online IQ tests and worrying that somehow you’re going to find out you’re nowhere near as smart as your mom always said you were. Thus, I’ve been curious and anxious to find out the results of CR’s test on the Ove Glove, the Kevlar-containing oven mitt that has helped me fetch any number of piping hot items from the heart of a fire-breathing oven. [More]
Survey: 15% Of Drivers Getting Their Swerve On While Driving
By 6.2.10
From cell phones to stereos to billboards to those pesky other vehicles on the road, driving a car comes with a whole host of distractions. A new survey attempts to quantify just how many people are being distracted by the various and sundry things vying for drivers’ attention. [More]
Kansas, You Are The Smartest Drivers, NY, The Dumbest
By 5.30.10
Every year GMAC ranks the average scores of their national driver’s test by state — and this year Kansas had the smartest drivers and New York the dumbest. Here are the top 5 and bottom 5 from the ranking: [More]
Oily Gulf Seafood Will Literally Be Sniff Tested By Expert Smellers
By 5.27.10
Oil from the explosion of Deepwater Horizon is flooding the waters of some of the most productive coastal fishing areas in the world, says ABC News, so how will the FDA ensure that no oily fish make it into the food system? They’re gonna smell it. With their noses. [More]
Redesigned Hot Dog Breaks Apart When Eaten
By 5.25.10
Just three months after the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a call for a redesigned hot dog that would be safer for small children to eat, Eugene D. Gagliardi, Jr. — the food designer who invented Steak-umms and popcorn chicken — has come forward with a solution. His patented hot dog has eight slits that open during cooking, which cause it to break up into smaller pieces, potentially reducing the likelihood that a child could choke on it. [More]
Huff Post Ranks Airlines On Safety Records
By 5.25.10
Even the Huffington Post admits that their Safest U.S. Airlines list is a bit unnecessary, considering the excellent safety records of everyone on the list. Still, it’s fun to rank things, so that’s what they did. U.S. Airways and JetBlue came in near the top, while Delta, United and Continental came in at the bottom. Regardless, you’re likely to remain alive after a flight on any of them. [More]
Congress May Consider Banning Drop-Side Cribs
By 5.24.10
Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator from New York, is apparently unsatisfied with the CPSC’s pledge to implement a voluntary ban of drop-side cribs. Gillibrand plans to introduce legislation this week that would outlaw the sale of drop-side cribs and ban them from daycare centers and hotels. Earlier this month, the CPSC said that this crib design has killed at least 32 infants and toddlers since 2000, that over 7 million drop-side cribs have been recalled since 2005. [More]
Some Skin Lightening Creams Are Full Of Banned Mercury
By 5.22.10
The Chicago Tribune bought 50 creams used to lighten skin and fade age spots and had them sent to an outside lab for testing — and got troubling results. Six of the creams were found to contain amounts of mercury banned by federal law. Five of the creams had enough of the toxic metal to cause kidney damage over time, the Tribune reports. [More]
Newer Air Bags Could Be Doing More Harm To Belted Drivers Than Good
By 5.15.10
Buckling up is the law, but a new study is raising an important question — is the very act of clicking the seat belt in place putting drivers and front seat passengers at more risk from their air bags in a crash? [More]
Lettuce-Borne E.Coli Outbreak Hits Fourth State
By 5.13.10
Infected romaine lettuce from a single processing facility has been linked to the sickening of at least 23 people in four different states, NY, MI, TN, and OH, says the Center for Disease Control (CDC). [More]
Safety Commission Cracking Down On Cadmium In Kids' Jewelry
By 5.11.10
It’s a good thing summer camps are coming up, with their weird seminars on bracelet weaving and whittling rings, because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has just announced a recall of 19,000 charms sold at Claire’s stores, and says that’s just the beginning. [More]
Toyota Waited Months To Recall Trucks For Defect Linked To 3 Deaths
By 5.10.10
An AP investigation has found that Toyota waited nearly a year after a 2004 recall in Japan to issue the same recall in the U.S.– claiming that it had little evidence of a U.S. problem. The AP says, however, that the automaker had received at least 52 reports from U.S. drivers about a steering defect in trucks and SUVs. [More]
Drop-Side Cribs Have Killed At Least 32 Kids
By 5.7.10
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced the results of its investigation of drop-side cribs and has concluded that they are not as safe as regular cribs and have caused or contributed to at least 32 deaths since January 2000. [More]
