Maryland might be the next state to pass a ban on lead in children’s products, following California, Michigan and Illinois, which we wrote about yesterday. Laura Smitherman of the Baltimore Sun in her story, “Lawmakers mull ban on lead toys,” says some Maryland legislators don’t want to wait around for the feds to get their act together.
Archive for January, 2008
January23
Maryland next to get the lead out?
From Craig Homan @ Watchdog Blog: In what no longer comes as a surprise, the House ethics committee — contradicted by their colleagues at the Senate ethics committee — have poked another gaping hole in the new ethics rules. The new ethics rules ban gifts of any value from lobbying organizations to lawmakers. Both the House and Senate ethics committees were asked by a lobbying organization to rule on whether that organization may buy tables of seats at a charity event, and then suggest to the sponsors of the event to hand them over as gifts to lawmakers.
Sure, I like to harp about how greedy corporate interests are always putting profits over the public good. I don’t spend any time looking at all the good things big corporations do for society, you say. I’m thinking maybe you have a point. Then, of course, I come across Sam Roe’s and Ted Gregory’s story, “Toymaker fights state recall,” in the Chicago Tribune (via The Consumerist) and all my skepticism seems worthwhile.
New York Times reporter Tara Parker-Pope writes about the Vytorin controversy in her column, “What that Cholesterol Trial Didn’t Show,” and on her NYT health blog, Well. Both column and blog seem to state the case that there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about the recent Merck and Schering-Plough clinical trial that found Zetia (a component of Vytorin) doesn’t really do much to reduce the risk of heart attacks.
Mitt Romney, who is fond of painting himself as a D.C. outsider, is finding it hard to have his cake and eat it, too. He got into it the other day with Associated Press reporter Glen Johnson during a South Carolina photo-op over the question of his ties to lobbyists. Mitt insists he is running a lobbyist-free campaign, or at least that those evil lobbyists are doing nothing more than just sort of hanging out with his campaign. Now comes Boston Herald reporter Jessica Van Sack with her story, “More than a dozen lobbyists raising money for Romney.”
