Consumer Protection

Is our food safe? What about the drugs we take? The cars we drive and the products we buy? Are the banks, credit card companies and lenders dealing fairly with us? In each case, federal agencies are charged with making sure the answer is “yes.” But examples of unsafe products and unfair practices abound in the marketplace.

For years, General Motors hid from regulators evidence that an ignition switch the company used in its Cobalts, Opels, Pontiacs, and Saturns had such a hair trigger that a light brush by the driver’s hand or knee would shut down the engine, disabling air bags and power steering. The resulting loss of control caused at least 13 fatal accidents. GM's ability to avoid detection for so many years says as much about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's weak enforcement record as anything.

Other examples abound. From tainted peanut butter to toxic drywall, to lead-laden imported toys, such instances of unsafe food, drugs, automobiles and products are all too dangerous evidence of a failed system of regulation and enforcement. Often the failure is the result of neglect – a lack of political will to spend the money required to conduct meaningful research and enforcement. Sometimes the cause is ideological: a conviction that safeguards interfere unduly with industry profits. Either way, the result is that industry is spared the costs of being accountable for unsafe production practices, shifting those costs instead to consumers in the form of injuries, illness and worse.

Below, see what CPR Members Scholars and staff have had to say about it in reports, testimony, op-eds and more. Use the search box to narrow the list.

Maryland's Whistleblower Law Needs Teeth

In 2013, about 25,000 Maryland workers suffered on-the-job injuries severe enough to force them to miss a day or more of work; 78 of them actually died from their injuries. Year after year, a few tragic fact patterns repeat more often than you might expect: arborists crushed by falling trees, construction workers tumbling from ladders and roadwork crews run over by passing motorists.

Type: Op-Eds (Dec. 4, 2014)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Name a tough prosecutor to succeed Holder

Name a tough prosecutor to succeed Holder, op-ed by Rena Steinzor

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 14, 2014)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Rena Steinzor testimony before Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittees on Oversight and Environment on the Status of Reforms to IRIS


Rena Steinzor's July 16, 2015, testimony before Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittees on Oversight and Environment on the Status of Reforms to EPA's Integrated Risk Information System

Type: Legislative Testimony (July 16, 2014)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Gov. Jindal, Don't Sign Away Our Legal Claims

Gov. Jindal, Don't Sign Away Our Legal Claims, op-ed by Rob Verchick

Type: Op-Eds (June 2, 2014)
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Author(s): Robert Verchick
CPR Comments on FDA Generics Rule

CPR Comments on FDA Generics Rule, the Food and Drug Administration’s proposal to revise its regulations governing the procedures for changing product labeling to reflect certain types of newly acquired information in order to extend to generic drug manufacturers the same opportunities afforded “brand name” drug manufacturers.

Type: Letters to Agencies (March 10, 2014)
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Author(s): Sidney Shapiro, Thomas McGarity, James Goodwin
Comments to the FDA on food safety rules for raw produc

Comments to the FDA on food safety rules for raw produce on several CPR Member Scholars and staff

Type: Letters to Agencies (Nov. 15, 2013)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling, Thomas McGarity, Sidney Shapiro, Rena Steinzor, Michael Patoka
Comments to the FDA on preventive controls for human food production

Comments from several CPR Members Scholars and staff to the FDA on preventive controls for human food production, November 15, 2013

Type: Letters to Agencies (Nov. 15, 2013)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling, Thomas McGarity, Sidney Shapiro, Rena Steinzor, Michael Patoka
No mere patch protects nature

No mere patch protects nature, op-ed by Victor Flatt and Catherine Phillips

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 9, 2013)
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Author(s): Victor Flatt
TSCA Reform: Preserving Tort and Regulatory Approaches

Issue Alert: TSCA Reform: Preserving Tort and Regulatory Approaches, by CPR Member Scholars Emily Hammond,Thomas McGarity, Sidney Shapiro, and Wendy Wagner, and CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin, CPR Issue Alert 1309, October 2013.

Type: Reports (Oct. 1, 2013)
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Author(s): Wendy Wagner, Sidney Shapiro, Thomas McGarity, James Goodwin

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