A bill called the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 was introduced yesterday in the House. The bill would amend 1976 s Toxic Substances Control Act by enforcing a safety and risk assessment of all chemicals to which Americans are exposed.

Sadly for the Florida plaintiffs from the decertified Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc. class-action lawsuit, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declared yesterday that previous rulings from the original lawsuit could not be used alone to prove that the RJ Reynolds tobacco company (and other cigarette makers, by implication) was negligent for selling “defective” products — cigarettes — and conspired to hide the defective aspects which did indeed cause lung cancer and other diseases.

ACSH staffers welcome an article in the online journal, Medscape, reporting on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) suit against the FDA asking for a “writ of mandamus,” or court order requiring the agency to respond to NRDC’s 2008 petition to ban the use of BPA in commercial products.
In addition to calling the NRDC lawsuit “bizarre,” ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross was further quoted in the article:

According to U.S. researchers, there are an estimated 11,300 throat cancer cases attributable to human papilloma virus (HPV) annually, although the government does not formally track the incidence rate since the connection between HPV and throat cancer was only made in the past few years. The rate is expected to rise since people have more sexual partners now than in decades past.

A new bill proposed by Democrats in Congress on Wednesday seeks to give the FDA the authority to require cosmetics companies to conduct safety assessments on product ingredients for pre-market approval, something the agency is unable to do under current law.

In yesterday’s Dispatch “No More Avastin For Breast Cancer,” ACSH's Jeff Stier proposed that the FDA expedite the drug market-approval process since “they can always reevaluate later.”
ACSH trustee and Hoover Institution fellow Dr. Henry Miller, a former top FDA official, adds:

After reading yesterday s Dispatch entry addressing the public health concern over raw milk, ACSH advisor Dean Cliver, Ph.D., a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, weighed in with this own expert opinion:

Stricter rules aimed at curbing purported conflicts of interest between Harvard Medical School faculty and healthcare companies will be implemented after January 1 in an attempt to prevent companies from using Harvard’s esteemed reputation for brand marketing.

Slate.com ran a story addressing the controversy over raw (unpasteurized) milk consumption, which public health officials have linked to 85 infectious disease outbreaks from 1998-2008. Advocates for raw milk argue, however, that “nature’s perfect food” tastes better and that public health concerns are overblown. Raw milk is banned in some states, but those that allow it impose strict regulations on the farms that produce it.

On Tuesday, an FDA advisory panel recommended that Avastin no longer be indicated for breast cancer after new studies failed to show that the drug could increase patients’ life expectancy. Avastin is currently approved for colon, lung, and other cancers, but physicians will have to prescribe it as an off-label breast cancer treatment if the FDA chooses to adopt the panel’s decision.