In the Public Interest

Mind Pollution

General Motors is disturbed that somehow millions of school children believe that air pollution can seriously ravage their health. To change their minds, GM has launched a massive brainwashing campaign to tell them that auto air pollution isn’t so bad and will soon disappear. The first stage of the auto giant’s strategy is an 18-page…

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Thalidomide Babies

It has been more than a decade since the world learned that a sedative drug called thalidomide, taken by pregnant women, had resulted in the birth of about 10,000 horribly deformed, limbless babies in a dozen countries, mostly West Germany, England and Japan. There are about 400 thalidomide children in England. Most of them have…

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Partial Secrecy

A few days before Christmas, James E. Mack must have felt he was earning his salary as managing director of the Washington-based Peanut Butter Manufacturers and Nut Salters Association (PBMNSA). He had just mailed a highly confidential draft report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, on the Peanut Price Support Program…

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Punitive Blackouts

Last October 21 six children, brothers and sisters, died in a house fire in Sacramento, California. The fire was started by two candles which were burning unattended in the living room and the resultant flames, smoke and fumes from the combustible household furnishings overcame the children in their upstairs bedrooms. The candles were being used…

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The Dark Side of Brighteners

The continuing cost of corporate secrecy to consumers will soon be given greater focus in yet another group of widely used chemicals called “optical brighteners.” Millions of pounds of these chemical compounds are used in detergents, cosmetics, textiles, paper, soap, bandages and plastics. Their purpose: to make products “whiter than white.” Brighteners make things whiter…

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A New Chance for Auto Safety

The new team of Presidential appointees, soon to take over at the Department of Transportation, has a great opportunity to push through a number of technological breakthroughs in auto safety and auto economy. Here is part of the agenda which they must vigorously publicize if they are to derive the necessary public support in forthcoming…

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Let’s Go After the Crime in the Suites

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Whitney North Seymour, is distributing a 64-page booklet entitled “Fighting White-Collar Crime” to corporations and other busi­ness groups. This effort is a followup to a Seymour speech last July in which he stated: “Let there be no mistake about it, there is exten­sive crime in…

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White Collar Crime

The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Whitney N. Seymour, is distributing a 64 page booklet entitled “Fighting White Collar Crime” to corporations and other business groups. This effort is a follow‑up to a speech last July by Mr. Seymour in which he stated: “Let there be no mistake about it,…

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CCAG

Early last year, my associate, Donald Ross, a young lawyer with a Peace Corps background, spent several weeks in Connecticut with students and community residents to urge the creation of a statewide citizens’ action organization. In a society composed of large corporate and governmental institutions, such citizenship would have to be composed of full-time, skilled…

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Standardized Tests Under Fire

For the past generation, millions of high school and college students have taken college or graduate school admissions tests prepared and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, New Jersey. They were to be tested for their “scholastic aptitude” and, by and large, they passively accepted the results even to the point, parents…

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