Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
Agriculture
FDA Moves to Level the Food-Labeling Playing Field
The FDA is charged with ensuring that the labeling of packaged foods is not “false or misleading in any particular,” as mandated by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. That ensures that consumers are not deceived and know what they’re paying for. In recent years, however, regulators’ enforcement priorities have ...
Agriculture
Are You Getting Anti-Vaccine Information From Russian Propagandists?
The spike in the number of measles cases in the United States is finally garnering the attention it deserves, as the number of new illnesses continues to accelerate. The number of cases in the United States now stands at more than 750, the highest number recorded in a year since the ...
Agriculture
A Scientist’s Week at the Vatican
Ten years ago this month, I had the experience of a lifetime. I was one of a small group of scholars from around the world who were convened by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences for a “study week.” Our subject was “Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context ...
Commentary
FDA Has Problems, But Too-Fast, Too-Lenient Reviews Aren’t Among Them
In its international edition on April 25, the New York Times ran a blatantly anti-Semitic political cartoon that portrayed a blind President Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was depicted as a dog wearing a collar with a star of David. It was, ...
Agriculture
We Don’t Need to Ban Pesticides to Save Bees
Some old ideas for bad laws are endlessly recycled. Take the case of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act, a nearly six-year-old initiative now cosponsored by two Democrat representatives, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. Reintroduced for the fifth time since 2013, the bill would usurp the Environmental ...
Commentary
Desperately Seeking a Reformer to Head the FDA
Federal regulation affects our lives every day in more ways than we realize. The Food and Drug Administration alone regulates products that account for more than a trillion dollars annually—25 cents of every consumer dollar; and the average cost (including out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity costs) to bring a new drug ...
Agriculture
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Commentary
The FDA has problems — Here are the qualities the next commissioner must have to fix them
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the nation’s most ubiquitous regulatory agency. It oversees a vast array of medical and food products that account for 25 cents of every consumer dollar, with a value of over a trillion dollars annually. And the agency has problems. It’s too risk-averse, bureaucratically ...
Commentary
Opioid crisis — Since when does the government write prescriptions?
Opioid-related deaths nationwide jumped four-fold in the last two decades, and the epidemic has made major inroads in the Eastern states, according to a new study by a U.S.- Canadian research team. The team found that “the life expectancy lost at age 15 years from opioids is now greater than ...
Agriculture
Do organic farms really produce ‘chemical free, healthier food’?
In “The Wealth of Nations,” the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
FDA Moves to Level the Food-Labeling Playing Field
The FDA is charged with ensuring that the labeling of packaged foods is not “false or misleading in any particular,” as mandated by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. That ensures that consumers are not deceived and know what they’re paying for. In recent years, however, regulators’ enforcement priorities have ...
Are You Getting Anti-Vaccine Information From Russian Propagandists?
The spike in the number of measles cases in the United States is finally garnering the attention it deserves, as the number of new illnesses continues to accelerate. The number of cases in the United States now stands at more than 750, the highest number recorded in a year since the ...
A Scientist’s Week at the Vatican
Ten years ago this month, I had the experience of a lifetime. I was one of a small group of scholars from around the world who were convened by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences for a “study week.” Our subject was “Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context ...
FDA Has Problems, But Too-Fast, Too-Lenient Reviews Aren’t Among Them
In its international edition on April 25, the New York Times ran a blatantly anti-Semitic political cartoon that portrayed a blind President Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was depicted as a dog wearing a collar with a star of David. It was, ...
We Don’t Need to Ban Pesticides to Save Bees
Some old ideas for bad laws are endlessly recycled. Take the case of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act, a nearly six-year-old initiative now cosponsored by two Democrat representatives, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. Reintroduced for the fifth time since 2013, the bill would usurp the Environmental ...
Desperately Seeking a Reformer to Head the FDA
Federal regulation affects our lives every day in more ways than we realize. The Food and Drug Administration alone regulates products that account for more than a trillion dollars annually—25 cents of every consumer dollar; and the average cost (including out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity costs) to bring a new drug ...
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
The FDA has problems — Here are the qualities the next commissioner must have to fix them
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the nation’s most ubiquitous regulatory agency. It oversees a vast array of medical and food products that account for 25 cents of every consumer dollar, with a value of over a trillion dollars annually. And the agency has problems. It’s too risk-averse, bureaucratically ...
Opioid crisis — Since when does the government write prescriptions?
Opioid-related deaths nationwide jumped four-fold in the last two decades, and the epidemic has made major inroads in the Eastern states, according to a new study by a U.S.- Canadian research team. The team found that “the life expectancy lost at age 15 years from opioids is now greater than ...
Do organic farms really produce ‘chemical free, healthier food’?
In “The Wealth of Nations,” the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
