In the Public Interest

If there was any hope that the White House would at least pay lip service to consumer protection, President Nixon’s recent “Human Resources” message to Congress scrapped it. The section in the message devoted to “Consumer Affairs” was a dismal declaration of no interest. Where previous Presidents have spoken about market place abuses of the…

The lighting fixtures and electric utility industries have made it. By pushing for and installing higher and higher illumination levels in buildings, they have sold more fixtures, more services and more electricity. This escalating practice of waste shows no signs of abating even in this period of public concern over inflation and the nation’s energy…

The federal program providing lawyers for the poor is heading for destruction. Cynically, White House and Office of Economic Opportunity reactionaries are breaking up the nonpolitical structure of the Neighborhood Legal Services program in preparation for its ultimate disintegration. The 2400 lawyers representing poor people in consumer, landlord, employment, family and governmental problems throughout the…

President Nixon’s proposed $268.7 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, continues the Administration’s indifference to consumer rights. In his Inaugural Address, a few days before unloading the federal government’s biggest budget ever, the President told the people that they shouldn’t expect much from him or the government but rather they should…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…