In the Public Interest

This week it was a multistate recall of watermelons con­taminated with the pesticide aldicarb sulfoxide in southern California. Grocers in California, Alaska, Oregon and Washington were warned by health officials not to sell these watermelons. So far, about 100 persons in these states and Canada have fallen sick, suffering tremors, muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting or…

Sometime this month, General Motors assures us, a decision will be announced regarding the location of the Saturn small car factory. For hundreds of local, state and other booster groups, the 7-month period of frantic bidding and anxiety will be replaced by a deep disappointment — except, that is, for the town and state that…

More Americans tell pollsters that they receive their news primarily from television than from newspapers. Since the hijacking of the TWA plane on June 14, viewers have been receiving very little news about anything else. This raises the question of what standards network television news shows should apply to their coverage of a dramatic event.…

Billions of dollars are at stake every year, but the Cola Wars surely tell us more than that about grown men and susceptible imbibers. The latest battle commanding headlines is over the new Coke concocted from a reformulation of the super­secret Coke formula long concealed inside an Atlanta bank vault. The momentous question is: will…

An unreported, unique event occurred last week in Washington that illustrates. once again how corporate-indentured is much of the media and how absurd is Senator Jesse Helms’ claim that the media is too liberal. At a ceremony held in a prominent Washington hotel, with the media invited, 8 national consumer and health organizations, led by…

Washington, DC — The reasons why dictatorships will never have the economic growth of democracies are sometimes unconventional. A long line of lobbyists’ aides waiting outside the place, where the government was selling its $16 volume containing Fleagan’s tax proposals last month, was followed by a longer line of lobbyists waiting to get inside the…

Sniff, sniff, sniff is big business It goes far beyond selling perfumes and deodorants that people buy to use on themselves. The business of odoriferous alteration or manipulation of products and environments that interact with people is spreading fast. I noticed just how pervasive this diffusion of smells has become when a cab driver told…

Ronald Reagan is not known to practice leadership by example. Recently, for instance, he sent Congress a proposal to cut the pay of federal workers by 5 percent. but he did riot apply that same level of sacrifice to his $200,000 a year Presidential salary. Now, however, he has an opportunity to support legislation, sponsored…

College graduations are in full swing these days and almost as predictable are the announcements of annual tuition increases that precede these joyous occasions by a few weeks but, hark, from southern Kansas comes a discordant note: Southwestern College (Winfield, Kansas) declares that it “will reduce tuition by $800 for the 1985-86 school year.” College…

Ma Bell and the now independent, local Bell companies owe you $182 million from certain overcharges exacted in the year 1978. “What’s taking so long, you say? Well, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not order a refund to long distance telephone consumers until November 22, 1904 and then only after a consumer group, the…