Thursday, November 18, 2010

FDA to the rescue

Okay, we really are living in a Salvador Dalí movie: following in the footsteps of of Washington, New York & probably other states, the FDA & FTC are moving to ban caffeinated alco-pops.

Seems alcoholic energy drinks (an oxymoron that should have been a clue from the start) are really, really bad for you (especially if you drink six of them at a frat party) & so supermarket & convenience store shelves should be cleared of them ASAP. (On Tuesday the manufacturer of these things announced it would take the caffeine out of their formula. That makes it so much better.)

Now, coming from the agencies that took bleeding decades to slap a “smoking may be hazardous to your health” sticker on packs of cigarettes & allowed GlaxoSmithKline to manufacture & sell (at top dollar) defective drugs for years (despite constant warnings by a whistle-blower) before finally tickling a $750M fine out of them (a sum which can be vacuumed out of the sofa cushions in the executive lounge), this is just kurazy.

All I can think is that the alco-pop industry doesn’t have the juice that big pharma & big tobacco does so it was easy for the FDA to be seen to protect the public.

It’s still Chien Andalou.

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