Food and Drug Administration

How Brad Pitt Gets His Ideas

FDA Looking Into Carter Albrecht's "Case"

FDA Makes It Official: It's Investigating Chantix and Its Side Effects

The Clone Wars

Pfizer No Longer Ruling Out Chantix Side Effects: "Depression and Suicidal Behavior"

Chantix "Increasing Likely" to Cause "Agitation" and "Suicidal Behavior"

Suicidal Tendencies: Or, a New York Writer Takes Chantix

Is Fort Worth-Based BNSF Trying to "Intimidate Its Critics"?

Snakes in the grass

We're about to get bit again by deregulation

True crime story

Forget the usual tales of rape and pillage--consider the sins of corporate America

Haggis: Did It Gag Us?

Patrick MichelsAs per tradition, haggis is best plated on paper, beside a bottle of Belhaven.We see how it is. The Glenlivet reps come by the office to offer tastings of the company's 18 to 25 year-old Scotch and what do we who don't have our own offices get? Perhaps a dram of whisky? Just a taste? ... More >>

Food For Thought...

"We don't have a good idea right now in terms of how much of that product is still out there; it may have largely been consumed." (Stephen Sundlof of the FDA after the government extended a recall of peanut products produced by the Peanut Corporation of America's Blakely, GA, plant to include the pa ... More >>

Getting fat off non-fat

A fat substitute with some unpleasant potential side effects pits junk food against junk science

Rice brewhaha

The Blue Fish menusinks in a river of sake

Unacceptable Risk

Texas health officials say that mandatory childhood vaccinations against hepatitis B will prevent the spread of life-threatening illness. But which is riskier--the disease or the vaccine?

Letters

Killer Raisin Stem, Church and State Pen, Still No. 3

Chewing the Fat: Plastic People

The state of some food these days is enough to make a man go hungry rather than risk consuming the contents of many processed and pre-packaged items. If it's not salmonella-tainted peanuts, it's energy drinks that turn your blood into syrup. Health Canada recently found that 96 percent of sodas o ... More >>

Food For Thought 3.25.09

"Because it sells, food companies are slapping it on anything. And consumers believe natural equals nutritious. Actually, it's a bit like Alice in Wonderland. It means what I want it to mean." (Julie Miller Jones, professor of food safety and nutrition at College of St. Catherine in Minnesota on th ... More >>

Stay Hungry, Live Longer: the Science Behind the Calorie Restriction Diet

An SMU biologist thinks the secret to the fountain of youth may be found by putting fruit flies on a diet.

Ringing Up Baby

Cashing in on the adoption biz is easy in Texas, where lax rules let almost anyone play. Take Jennalee Ryan, for instance...

Dino-myte

Plus: Soy-lent Green; Player’s Ball

Race With a Killer

A Dallas doctor believes he holds a miracle treatment for a disease that maims and kills children. Proving it will take another miracle.

The Next Breast Thing

Build a better fake boob, and women will beat a path to your door, along with the occasional lawsuit

A Jolt to the System

This small electrical device may be the last hope for the chronically depressed

Seeds of Discontent

Can growing protests stem the tide of genetically engineered crops?

Ten-gallon beret

Charolais is a steak house with a French kiss

At a Snail's Place

Richard Fullington is trying to make a fortune in a slimy business

Food For Thought 4.14.09

"Stevia is supposed to offer a non-dangerous natural alternative to sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, and that's why it's supposed to do well. It doesn't have the calorie punch of sugar; it doesn't have the bad image of HFCS." (Marcia Mogelonsky, senior research analyst with ... More >>

Fear The Cookie Dough

Delfi's World [In Focus], via FlickrA couple of notable news items came across the desk this weekend while you were out grillin' with Dad. Time to play catch up:Last Friday, June 19th, Nestle USA announced a voluntary recall of nearly four dozen Toll House refrigerated dough products. The action ... More >>

Two Years After Albrecht's Death, FDA Forces "Mental Health Events" Chantix Warning

To this day, people still post comments to the September 4, 2007, Unfair Park item concerning the smoking-cessation drug Chantix and its troubling effect on users. Andrea Grimes wrote the piece because Sorta's Carter Albrecht and his girlfriend had begun using the Pfizer-made medicine shortly before ... More >>

Carter Albrecht's Dad Explains Why, Two Years Later, He and His Wife are Suing Pfizer

Carter Albrecht​Yesterday in Dallas federal court, Carter Albrecht's parents, Ken and Judy, finally sued Pfizer, claiming that its smoking-cessation drug Chantix played a "direct and proximate" role in Carter's shooting death almost two years ago to the day. The Albrechts have long considered suin ... More >>

To The Full Ex-Stent of the Law

​More than two years ago, Kevin Colquitt filed a lawsuit in Dallas federal court in which he alleges "the makers of stents approved to treat digestive tract cancers had illegally marketed them for years to treat blocked blood vessels in other parts of the body," as The New York Times recaps this m ... More >>

FDA Warning: Tons of Contaminated Cheese Sold in Florida, Texas, California, New York

Picture from Truesake.com​Yesterday Chuck Strouse over at our sister paper, Miami New Times reported on what may be one of the largest cheese busts in history: 85 tons of staph infected cheese were found festering in Miami's Lacteos Factory. The feds ordered the return of the cheese, and the U.S. ... More >>

Goya Foods Recalls Frozen Mamey Packages Linked to Salmonella Typhi

​Secaucus, New Jersey-based Goya Foods Inc., the dominant Latin American foods company, has recalled all its 14-ounce packages of frozen mamey pulp. The product is used to make milkshakes and smoothies. The packages were distributed in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico, ... More >>

Apple Juice Not Just for Kids Anymore, Though It Should Be

​Far be it from me to meddle in other people's hydration techniques, but I was surprised this weekend to come across an overheated valet chugging a gallon of frozen apple juice. I like apples, but I always figured there was an age limit on enjoying apple juice. I'd no sooner drink apple juice ... More >>

Foods the FDA Should Recall

Andrea GrimesVegan Activists Protested Factory Farms In Egg-streme Heat​The recent food recalls of eggs and beef (and their subsequent protests) got us thinking about food recalls that would better serve humanity. Herein, we provide a list of foods that should be taken off the market. One is worse ... More >>

Four Rare, Retro Culinary Price is Right Clips

​Now in its seventh season, Top Chef is still breaking enough ground to have scored an Emmy this weekend in the "Outstanding Reality-Competition Program" category. (Then again, the award may not be a fair gauge of innovation: The Amazing Race has won it seven years in a row.) But a few elements o ... More >>

A hallucinogen called ibogaine has helped addicts kick heroin, meth and everything in between. Is it the trip that does the trick?

​Now in its seventh season, Top Chef is still breaking enough ground to have scored an Emmy this weekend in the "Outstanding Reality-Competition Program" category. (Then again, the award may not be a fair gauge of innovation: The Amazing Race has won it seven years in a row.) But a few elements o ... More >>

Trendsetters: Five Foods and Drinks That Had (Mostly) a Good Year

Man, we are so sick of eating all that kamut.​2010 was supposed to be kamut's year. Industry watchers in 2009 predicted the wheat-like grain associated with King Tut would ride a celiac wave to greatness this year, sharing American pantries with papadum and coconut-milk pancake mix. The big n ... More >>

Turnips, Happy Meals and Tainted Eggs: The Year's 10 Biggest National Food Stories

​Food lovers must talk with their mouths full, since there was plenty of discussion of many, many food-related topics in 2010. But a few national stories struck us as most important. Let us know what you think. 1. The food safety bill The massive food safety bill had been left for dead when the ... More >>

Beers Of The Year

Don't criticize it.​Overall, it's been another great year for beer, at least from my perspective here in North Texas. If I didn't suspect reader list burnout, I could probably do another top 10 piece on the best developments of the past year, and even another on things I'm most looking forward to ... More >>

Girl Scout Cookies: Leave It to Us to Dig Up
A Murder Angle

​The Girl Scouts' cookie sales season starts this week. And while there aren't any new cookies on the roster this year, the scouts are celebrating the 35th anniversary of Samoas -- a caramel-coconut concoction that debuted in a year the organization might otherwise wish to forget. Girl Scouts ... More >>

So You Want to Participate in UT-Dallas's Tinnitus Trials? The Good News and Bad News.

​Almost as soon as we published that very popular post about University of Texas at Dallas researchers' efforts to silence that high-pitched problem known as tinnitus, readers began leaving comments and sending e-mails in which they all asked the same question: How can I  participate in the f ... More >>

Bake Sale Bandits

Local Movement Fights for Cottage Food Bill.

Limitless: One Pill Makes You Smarter in a One-Note Movie.

Local Movement Fights for Cottage Food Bill.

Unnatural Umami: How Soy Sauce Took a Shortcut Past Organic

​Several years ago, the discovery of the carcinogenic compound 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol in soy sauce was generating concern throughout parts of Europe and Asia. A United Kingdom study directed attention to the matter in 2001.It turned out that low levels of 3-MCPD had been present in processe ... More >>

Of Gluttony, Hot Meat, Luscious Tomatoes and Dirty Chocolate: A Sinful Week in Food News

flickr user advencapGratuitous tomato porn.​ The FDA is under scrutiny in The New York Times this week. Looks like the serving sizes listed on nutrition labels may be getting a new look and Observer Editor Joe Tone will have a new and legitimate excuse to Hoover down ice cream by the pint. I ... More >>

Do Melatonin Brownies Actually Do Anything? An Unfair Park Special Report.

No pot references here, no sir.​"You're going to eat that now?" the guy at the head shop asked. He looked worried. "That's not a good idea. I don't take 'em in the daytime. It renders me non-functional."Well, shit. It was Friday afternoon, and I was about to drug my co-workers.A little background, ... More >>

Rick Perry, Stem Cell Therapy and the Battle Between Medical Freedom and Opportunism

​The Texas Medical Board is putting off until April a vote on how to regulate adult stem cell therapy, which involves using tissues from one's own body rather than controversial stem cells cultivated from human embryos. We don't blame 'em. This issue is thornier than a Texas mesquite thicket, ... More >>

One Man's (Somewhat Frantic and Almost Failed) Hunt for Emergency Contraceptive

Oh, Canada.​One night late last year, Jason Melbourne walked into a CVS pharmacy in Mesquite, hoping against hope to walk out with an emergency contraceptive, or "the morning-after pill." It wasn't the morning after. He and his wife had their "accident" a few days before, and the 72-hour windo ... More >>