In the Public Interest

Day after day in a federal courtroom in Newark, New Jersey, the ghastly story of the tobacco industry and lung cancer is being told. The case involves Rose D. Cipollone who died in 19E4 at age 59 from smoking cigarettes since she was 16. Her husband is suing, on her behalf, Philip Morris, P. Lorillard…

Many years ago I wondered why nobody developed a publication which just printed letters that citizens write to their members of Congress, their newspapers and other outlets. The vast majority of these epistles never reach beyond their immediate recipient — a pity as this sample of mail we have received on a recent day: —…

Former Speaker Tip O’Neill said of Reagan: “he knows less than any president I’ve ever known.” A hundred and seventy page book by Mark Green and Gail MacColl fills page after page with Mr. Reagan’s verbal errors, falsifications and wild political exaggerations. Among the items in “Reagan’s Reign of Error” are assertions that ‘once launched,…

“In the final analysis, the issue in this campaign is leadership”, says Bob Dole over and over again, adding that “I voted in Congress fifteen or twenty thousand times in twenty-seven years. My record is there. You can study it.” Let’s “study” some contrasts. Repeatedly, Dole says that the deficit is the biggest domestic issue.…

One of the results of eight years of Reaganism in Washington was the near eclipse of the government’s solar energy research and promotion program. The Californian came to town in 1981 touting atomic power and he poured money into subsidizing and advancing that failed and risky technology while starving the Energy Department’s solar and conservation…

Over 2000 Britons, most of them middle-aged or elderly, trusted the Eli Lilly drug company in Indianapolis and survived to regret it. Starting around eight years ago, they took a drug called Opren (named. Oraflex in the U.S.) to allegedly combat pain and inflammation from their arthritis. The agony for many of them ranged from…

Lee Iacocca had this to say about air bags in his 1984 bestselling autobiography: “There are those who believe that air bags are the answer. I disagree. I’ve been speaking out against them since they were first developed almost twenty years ago.” Now look at this report from the February 10th Wall Street Journal: “Chrysler…

After cutting their deals and indenturing their treasuries to corporate interests between past elections which they have won several Presidential candidates are lobbing some catchall primary-time populism to the voters in the upcoming primaries. Give the folks some corporate bear meat, their advisers say; it fleshes out that “send ’em a message” urge against the…

The tide of public frustration and indignation over rising auto insurance rates appears unabated. Consumers cannot refuse to buy; auto insurance is a necessity and, in most states, is compulsory. The problems are threefold: inadequate regulation, inadequate compe­tition and inadequate comparative price information and voice for motorists. Presently, state regulation of the insurance industry is…

Out in California where many trends across the country get started, the large agribusiness growers and big supermarket chains have spotted one that has them worried. Raley’s, a small grocery chain with 57 stores in central California, has teamed up with Stan Rhodes and his NutriClean firm to test increasing numbers of fruits for hazardous…