Current Events in March 2007

A consumer class action filed in U.S. District Court in California charges that Vonage, the nation's largest Internet telephone provider, misled consumers about the quality and reliability of its service and engaged in false advertising and deceptive business practices.

In the suit, plaintiff Kai Porter of Inglewood, California, alleges that she signed up for the Vonage service on November 18, 2006 and asked that her existing landline number be transferred to her new Vonage account.

When the service did not work as promised, Porter canceled within 30 days of activating her account, expecting to receive a full refund under the company's widely-advertised "Money-Back Guarantee." She learned on December 27 that Vonage had not closed her account and did not intend to honor the guarantee.

Vonage promotes its service as an alternative to traditional telephone service. It spent more than $500 million on advertising in 2005 and the first nine months of 2006, making it one of the largest advertisers on the Internet, the suit alleges.

In its advertising, the company promises "higher quality" but, in fact, the suit charges, the quality and reliability of the service is inferior to traditional telephone service, with problems ranging from dropped calls to service outages and equipment conflicts. "Vonage knows about these problems but conceals them from consumers," the suit alleges.

Porter also alleges that:

• Vonage touts its customer service when in fact, consumers trying to call for assistance encounter long hold times, hang ups, multiple transfers and representatives who merely read from scripts;

• Vonage advertises "no annual contracts" but invokes a 12-page "terms of service" when customers try to cancel;

• Vonage charges consumers who cancel within two years of account activation a "disconnect fee" of $39.99 -- in effect, an early-termination fee;

• Vonage drags its feet when processing cancellations and continues to charge consumers' credit cards in the meantime;

• Vonage advertises a "Money-Back Guarantee" and "One Month FREE," stating on its website, "There's no risk to trying Vonage service. Our hassle-free Money-Back Guarantee policy guarantees your satisfaction." Vonage's website states that a consumer is eligible for the Money-Back Guarantee if she cancels her service "within 30 days of account activation." But consumers who try to cancel the service within 30 days of beginning to use the VoIP service learn that Vonage does not consider the 30-day "free" period to begin when the customer is first able to use the service, but rather much earlier -- the moment the customer contacts Vonage to sign up for the VoIP service. At that time, the customer has not even received the equipment needed to use the service, which Vonage states it will ship "within 5 days."

• In addition, one of Vonage's key selling points is that consumers can keep their current telephone number (either landline or cell) when they switch to Vonage's VoIP service, but Vonage's website states that it will take "a minimum of 20 days" to transfer the telephone number. A Vonage consumer will thus have 10 days or less to evaluate the service and decide whether to cancel and attempt to invoke the Money-Back Guarantee.

• When Vonage determines that a consumer canceled after the 30-day Money-Back Guarantee period expired, Vonage penalizes the consumer by charging not only the activation fee and a monthly service fee, but the $39.99 disconnect fee as well. Vonage will also charge the consumer for the amount of any "instant rebate" she received on the cost of the equipment required to use the service, which can total $50 or more.

The lawsuit also charges that the mandatory arbitration clause in Vonage's terms of service is unconscionable and unenforceable and that Vonage's terms of service violate California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

The case seeks damages and reimbursement for all California consumers affected by Vonage's actions.

Representing Porter are attorneys Daniel Girard of Girard Gibbs LLP, San Francisco, and Richard Doherty of Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates, Chicago.

Thousands of Ford truck owners have paid thousands of dollars to repair the damage caused by the mighty Ford Triton V-8 engine spitting a spark plug from its aluminum cylinder head.

They're the lucky ones compared to Dan of Huntington Beach, California. They at least had a truck left to repair.

Dan's 1997 F250 is a mass of charred rubber, melted glass and frayed wires.

The first plug blew from the number three cylinder on the passenger side of Dan's truck. He repaired it. Then 200 miles later the number four cylinder from the passenger side spit a spark plug.

"This time the loose plug started a fuel fire and burned my truck down to the axles in 12 minutes," Dan wrote ConsumerAffairs.com. The truck was destroyed.

"BEWARE. This could kill you," Dan warned. "It went up so fast we lost our cameras, computer, GPS and just got out ourselves."

Other consumers agree the problem is a hazard.

"Truly this is a dangerous situation because the fuel rail is right above the coil and spark plug. If this rail and injector break when the plug blows out this could result in a fire," said Robert of Quarryville, Pennsylvania, whose 2001 F250 Super Duty Crew Cab blew its #3 spark plug a few weeks ago.

NHTSA: No Problem

But at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a taxpayer-supported agency whose job is to protect the American public, federal employees disagree with Dan and Robert's warnings and have responded that no one is going to die because, as they see it, the spark plug issue presents no serious safety consequence.

An attorney in Santa Clarita, California, had petitioned NHTSA, asking it to investigate reports that Ford SUVs, pickups, Crown Victorias and Mustangs sold in the 1997-2004 model years had spark plugs that can come loose and fly through the hood.

Instead of putting consumer safety first, NHTSA is backing Ford. It's refusing to consider spit spark plugs beyond stating that its analysis of 474 complaints describing the incidents "found only a very few alleged any safety-related consequences. None of these showed any evidence of a serious safety consequence."

For its part, Ford continues to stonewall the problem and refuses to acknowledge any responsibility, a policy that is causing unrest among Ford service managers and technicians. One service technician recently told ConsumerAffairs.com that, even when Ford agrees to repair one of the engines, it pays dealers so little for the repair that the technicians end up working free hours.

NHTSA concluded its brief investigation with a haughty brush-off for Ford truck owners.

"In the need to allocate and prioritize limited resources to best accomplish the agency's safety mission, the petition (for a full-scale investigation possibly leading to a recall) is denied."

This is the same NHTSA that in the last year has recalled 45,000 Honda Civic hybrids because the engine could stall; 1.2 million Honda and Acura vehicles because their owners manual had incorrect information about NHTSA's "safety hotline;" a few hundred thousands Nissan Altimas and Sentras because the engine could stop running at slow speeds; 45,000 Chrysler vehiclesbecause leaking brake fluid could start an engine fire.

The agency made Audi stage a second recall of some A6 sedans, claiming a previous recall had not fixed a headlight switch that could short out and start a fire.

If complaints to ConsumerAffairs.com are any indication, few of the defects addressed by these recalls have caused widespread problems. Ford's spark plug problems, however, produce a steady stream of anguished complaints. While most don't involve fires, many have caused sudden engine failure that left consumers stranded on the roadside.

Boxed In

NHTSA might want to explain to David of Richfield, Ohio, that the safety plug blow-outs aren't a safety hazard.

"I was driving my 2001 Ford F-150 from Cleveland to Columbus when all of the sudden I heard a loud pop then a loud continuous popping sound came from the engine," David said in a ConsumerAffairs.com complaint dated March 21, 2007. "At first I was a little scared because I was in the middle of traffic on I-71 boxed in between two semi trucks. I couldn't move to the right or left.

"When I finally was able to move to the side of the road, I opened the hood and what did I find?" he wrote. " A spark plug melted to a piece of plastic and a spark plug coil with the spring sticking out sparking against another piece of plastic. I can only wonder what would have happened if I touched the energized spark coil or if it came in contact with metal and I touched the metal. Or even worse, what if the sparking coil came in contact with something flammable?"

"I was lucky that I and my passengers were not killed," Dan said. "Will someone have to die before this problem is fixed?"

Chris of Temple, Georgia, was driving home from work in his 2001 Expedition when he "heard a loud explosion as if some one had fired a gun right outside my door. The Expedition began operate poorly and was hard to control."

"I pulled to the side of the road only to see my spark plug sitting on the intake manifold. The sparkplug blew out of my motor thru the coil pack and busted my pcv valve hose," Chris said.

"I was driving my 2001 Ford F-250 with a V10 engine in some bad winter weather when I heard the engine pop," wrote Thomas of Bellevue, Iowa. "Luckily I was able to maintain control on slick roads after sudden loss of engine power. After getting out to inspect engine, I found the #1 spark plug still in the ruined ignition coil resting on top of the engine."

"My wife was driving to work when the number 3 spark plug blew out of my 2002 f150 Lightning," Dennis of Alta Loma, California, reported. "My wife was stranded on the side of the road. 30 miles from home. For 4 hours at night."

Not Uncommon

Most of the complaints of spit spark plugs at ConsumerAffairs.com involve vehicles with Triton V-8 and V-10 engines in model years 1997 to 2002. This includes the Econoline vans, F-Series trucks, the Explorer, Expedition, Excursion, Crown Victoria and some models of the Mustang.

More than 200 consumers have written to ConsumerAffairs.com about the problem over the last five years. In nearly every case, the Ford owners also complained to Ford, only to be told that the problem was not covered under their warranty and disclaiming any knowledge of a broader problem.

Many Ford dealers feign surprise at the sight of a spark plug blown out of its position in the cylinder head and profess to have never seen anything like the mess spread out before them.

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

EMPORIA, Kan., March 26, 2007 -- What kind of people could make pet food that kills cats and dogs?

In Emporia, a town of about 30,000 located 120 miles southwest of Kansas City on Interstate 35, Menu Foods is known for its high standards and demand for excellence.

It's a company that has pumped 476 good-paying jobs into this primarily blue-collar community in the past ten years. And one townspeople describe it as an "excellent community citizen" with "caring employees."

"This is unbelievable and doesn't make any sense," former Mayor Evora Wheeler says when asked about Menu Foods' production of dog and cat food tainted with rat poison.

The Emporia plant only makes the "cuts and gravy" style of pet food involved in the nationwide recall of 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food-sold under 95 different brands.

Canadian-based Menu Foods announced the massive recall on March 16, 2007, after pets that ate the company's food became ill or died.

"There has to be another explanation," Wheeler says of the contamination. "This is a fine company and I am confident they did not know an ingredient they were using was contaminated."

Wheeler and other townspeople ConsumerAffairs.com interviewed during a recent trip to Emporia are also confident that none of Menu Foods' employees are responsible for the contaminated pet food.

"It's somewhat insulting -- and a slam to our community -- when people talk about tampering," Wheeler says.

Jeff Longbine, chairman of the Regional Development Association, agrees.

"The thing that people don't see is the management and employees of Menu Foods. They're all good people. These are people who are our neighbors, our kids go to school with their kids, or we go to the same church.

"For this to have happened is devastating to them," he says. "And there is deep concern within this community for Menu Foods and its employees."

There's also tremendous concern for the scores of grieving pet owners across the country.

"My heart goes out to those pet owners," Wheeler says. "And I am confident that Menu Foods will do everything it can to correct this negative situation."

Jeanine McKenna, president and CEO of the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce, agreed: "We are all saddened by this. This is something that effects us all ... we're all animal lovers.

"I can understand why people are angry (at Menu Foods)," McKenna adds. "Their pets are their family members. But at the same time, these are employees who pride themselves in doing quality work. And they're just as devastated by this."

Rat Poison

New York investigators last week identified the source of the contamination in Menu's pet food as a toxin called aminopterin.

That's a rat poison widely used in other countries, but not in the United States.

"I was glad when I heard that (the contamination) wasn't anything in Menu's processing ... that it was something from an outside vendor," Longbine says. "I knew Menu Foods was too good of a company to take any short-cuts."

Menu Foods President and CEO, Paul Henderson, said last Friday that he doesn't know how the rat poison entered his company's food supply.

Earlier reports suggested the toxin may have been used on the wheat gluten Menu Foods imports from China -- or sprayed in the storage containers that transport the product overseas.

The Food and Drug Administration has focused its investigation on wheat gluten, which is commonly used in pet foods as a thickening agent and source of protein.

Plant Idle

As that investigation continues, Menu Foods' production plant in Emporia stands idle -- at least for now. The company announced a two-to-four-day shut down on March 23, 2007, in response to the recall.

That recall, that company says, is likely to cost between $30-$40 million. Menu Foods also faces at least three pending lawsuits filed in response to the contamination.

What does this mean for Menu's future in Emporia?

"I can tell you everybody is concerned," says Mayor Jim Kessler. "Menu Foods has been a success story here in Emporia as far as our economic development. And there's concern that this might affect the employment base here. But everybody hopes that Menu Foods will come through all this."

The company has vowed there will be no layoffs.

"There is absolutely zero impact on employment," The Emporia Gazette quoted a Menu Foods spokesman as saying. "The company has certainly been challenged by what has been one of the biggest recalls in consumer history, but our consumers are loyal, the company is strong and business is moving forward."

The home of fabled journalist and Progressivist William Allen White, Emporia had been down on its luck in the 1990s. In What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004), historian Thomas Frank portrayed Emporia as a shuttered, dried-up ghost of its former self, and blamed conservative economic policies for its decline.

Emporia's boosters say Frank went a little too far but beneath their Midwestern pride and optimism, there's a sense of concern for what the latest food-chain disaster means for Menu Foods and American agriculture.

Lifelong Emporia resident Jesse Solis remains optimistic, saying the key to Menu's future is its loyal customer base.

"And I think people will stick by this company. I'm a pet owner and I feed my dog Menu Foods. I will continue to feed him Menu Foods, and recommend it to other pet owners I know."

So will Longbine.

"I feed my dog Menu Foods and will continue to give it her," he says. "And I hope other people -- and Wal-Mart, Safeway, and other retailers -- will continue to buy the company's products.

"I think Menu Foods is strong enough to survive this."

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 23, 2007
The President and CEO of Menu Foods said late Friday that his company still does not know how rodent poisoning got into its cat and dog foods, but assured worried pet owners there's "no reason to suspect this matter goes beyond the recalled product."

President Paul Henderson also said there's no reason to suspect anyone tampered with his company's pet food, which has been linked to the deaths of at least 16 cats and dogs nationwide.

"The products (involved in the recall) are from two different facilities," he said of the plants in Emporia, Kansas and Pennsauken, New Jersey. Both plants are still making pet food. "The probability of someone tampering at both of those plants is remote."

Henderson said his company will continue testing to determine how the toxin -- identified by New York officials as Aminopterin -- got into its pet food. Aminopterin is a rat poison used in other countries, but not in the United States.

"We are happy and relieved that the experts from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Cornell University have discovered the root of the issue that has harmed North American cats and dogs," Henderson said.

Earlier reports suggested the poison may have been used on the wheat gluten the company imports from China. Henderson confirmed his company imports that product from China, but wouldn't say if it was the source of the poison.

All he would say was: "We have identified a correlation between a single ingredient and we stopped using it."

The Food and Drug Administration, however, has focused its investigation on that product. FDA officials say wheat gluten by itself would not cause kidney failure, but this common ingredient could have been contaminated

Since the company announced its recall of 60 million cans of "cut and gravy" style cat and dog food last week, Henderson said it has talked to nearly 200,000 worried pet owners.

"They were scared. Some, like myself, are angry. Our hearts go out to the many thousands of pet-owners across Canada and the U.S. for their losses and their worry."

One of those grieving pet owners attended Friday's press conference and asked Henderson how his company will compensate consumers for their veterinarian bills and other expenses.

"To the extent that we can identify the cause (of any illness or death) is from our food, we will take responsibility for that," Henderson said.

But is the company's pet food safe?

Henderson said his company has continued testing its product on animals.

"And there have been no adverse reactions from them."

Henderson said his company does not "admit negligence on our part" in connection with the poisoned pet food. He also declined to comment on the pending class action lawsuits filed against Menu Foods.

"Our primary concern is involved in the product recall and the investigation (of what caused the contamination)," he said. "The issue of litigation will follow in due course. Our focus is on pet safety."

Henderson said the recall will likely cost the company between $30 and $40 million. Will that trigger any lay-off or job cuts?

Henderson said it's premature to comment: "We'll make that decision when it's appropriate. We have a strong, sustainable business, and we're confident about the future."

In the meantime, Henderson said pet owners should immediately stop using any of the 95 brands of dog and cat food involved in the recall. Pet owners should also contact their veterinarian if their dogs or cats show any signs of illness after eating the recalled food.

Henderson said anyone who still has cans or pouches of the recalled food should return those products -- to the retailer where they purchased them -- for a full credit. "We'll then get those products from the retailers and destroy them ... according to FDA guidelines."

The recalled brands of pet food were sold throughout North America at Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and other large retailers. Some of the recalled foods were sold under private labels like Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba.

Could it be rat poison that's killing the nation's dogs and cats?

That's the conclusion of the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets, which announced today that the recalled Menu Food pet foods contained rodent poison.

State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hook identified the toxin as Aminopterin, which is used to kill rats in some countries. The poison is not registered as rodent killer in the United States, although it is used as a cancer drug.

According to a report by MSNBC, the poison may have been used on wheat imported from China.

The Food and Drug Administration has focused its investigation on wheat gluten in the pet food, which is blamed for causing kidney problems in dogs and cats across the country and the deaths of at least 16 pets -- although officials expect that number to rise.

The FDA says wheat gluten by itself would not cause kidney failure, but the common ingredient could have been contaminated.

New York officials aren't sure how the rodent poison got into the recalled pet food. But they apparently don't believe it was deliberate.

The New York Attorney General Office says it's not aware of any criminal investigation involving the tainted food. And FBI spokesman Paul Holstein in Albany said Friday that he was not aware of any FBI involvement in the case.

"I don't know where we'll go from here," he said.

Menu Foods of Canada announced its massive recall on March 16, 2007, after receiving complaints of kidney failure in pets that ate the food.

The recall involves 60 million cans of "cut and gravy" style cat and dog food -- sold across North America under 95 brand names. Those brands are carried by Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and other large retailers -- and also sold under other private labels like Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba.

A complete list of the recalled pet foods is available on Menu Food's Web site: www.menufoods.com/recall The company has also set up two phone numbers pet owners can call for more information: (866) 463-6738 and (866) 895-2708.

Pet Owners Haunted

A Manchester, New Hampshire, woman is haunted by recurring guilt surrounding the recent death of her beloved cat, Lily.

Her 16-year-old Siamese-Domestic Shorthair became seriously ill -- and had to put to sleep last week -- after eating five cans of Iams Flakes cat food, one of the 95 brands of "cut and gravy" style cat and dog food involved in Menu Food of Canada's nationwide recall.

"If I'd just kept feeding her the pt cat food and not switched to the Iams Flakes of salmon and tuna, then she'd still be around," says Lily's grieving owner, Deborah J. "But when I saw the cans of salmon and tuna, I thought she might like a change."

Deborah says her "best friend" was in good health before she became ill after eating the contaminated cat food on March 8, 2007.

"She was an active, healthy cat. But after I fed her the Iams salmon and tuna, she threw up and started going downhill. She stopped eating and starting hiding. We took her to the vet and learned she was in renal failure." Deborah says her veterinarian gave Lily IV fluids for four days, but the cat's condition continued to deteriorate.

"When our vet re-tested Lily's blood, her toxicity levels were still off the chart," she says. "He told me Lily was not going to pull through. That's when we both made the decision to put her to sleep. It was a horrible decision to make. I loved that cat so much. I'd had her since college."

Deborah's veterinarian put Lily to sleep on March 16, 2007.

The next day, Deborah learned about Menu Food's recall of 60 million cans of wet cat and dog food. She checked the food she'd given Lily and made a shocking discovery.

"When I looked at the cans of food I'd fed to Lily -- and the product codes of the cans being recalled -- I realized they were the same numbers. I thought 'Oh my gosh, these are the same ones.'"

The discovery also made Deborah worry about the safety of her other three cats, who had also eaten some of the tainted food.

"I was very concerned and we had all of them tested," she says. "And they're all OK." Deborah says she's not only had to deal with the emotional pain of losing Lily, whom she describes as "a very special cat."

Lily's death -- and the circumstances surrounding it -- also caused a financial strain on Deborah's family.

"Our vet bills are now close to $700 because we had to pay for all of Lily's care and the testing of our other cats," she says. "I think someone should reimburse people for their veterinarian bills. For those of us who have lost a pet, nothing can be done to bring them back . . . but someone should help people recoup the cost of their vet bills."

Cuomo's investigation has revealed that Education Finance Partners has repeatedly paid schools in exchange for steering loans to EFP and for putting EFP on "preferred lender" lists. Approximately 90% of students choose their lenders from their school's preferred lender lists.

Cuomo said his investigation has uncovered that neither the schools nor EFP adequately disclose to students that EFP is paying the schools to be promoted as a "preferred lender." Cuomo's legal action alleges that the relationship and financial arrangements between EFP and the schools constitute a deceptive business practice.

Cuomo also revealed that EFP made its financial kickback arrangements with schools through what are called revenue sharing agreements, which often were based on a tiered system that would give a higher percentage to the schools based on the amount of loans referred.

"EFP aggressively offered schools cash kickbacks in exchange for business," Cuomo said. "This kickback scheme was widespread and took place from coast to coast, at colleges large and small, public and private," Cuomo said. "This lawsuit is just the beginning of an investigation that will show that lenders put market share above fair play.

"A preferred lender ought to mean that the lender is preferred by students for its low rates, not by schools for its kickbacks. With the cost of college rising every day, the last thing students want to hear is that their lender may be muscling aside a more competitive loan package."

Big Bucks

This arrangement resulted in potentially large amounts of money paid by EFP to universities participating in the preferred lender program.

For example, EFP's agreement with Duquesne University gives the school 60 basis points (.6%) of the net value of all referred loans. The agreements are structured to encourage the schools to refer as much business as possible to EFP. For example, EFP's agreement with Boston University provides that BU will receive 25 basis points (.25 percent) of the net value of referred loans of at least $1,000,000 up to $5,000,000; 50 basis points (.5 percent) of value of referred loans between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000; and 75 basis points (.75 percent) of the net value of referred loans over $10,000,000.

Some schools such as Drexel University in Philadelphia received over $100,000 in kickbacks from EFP in a single year.

Under Drexel's agreement with EFP, dated April 1, 2006, Drexel has agreed to make EFP its "sole preferred private loan provider." In return, EFP has agreed that Drexel will receive 75 basis points (.75 percent) of the net value of referred loans between $1 and $24,999,999; and 100 basis point (1 percent) of all loan amounts of $25,000,000 or greater.

Among the schools with which EFP has had such revenue sharing agreements are: Baylor University, Boston University, Clemson University, Drexel University, Duquesne University, Fordham University, Long Island University, Pepperdine University, St. John's University, Texas Christian University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Mississippi. In total, EFP has had such agreements with more than 60 schools across the nation.

EFP engaged further in deceptive marketing practices by using schools' logos, mascots, and names in EFP promotional materials to imply that EFP had the school's official endorsement.

"EFP's marketing practices were clearly intended to imply that the universities had endorsed EFP loan products for individual student borrowers," Cuomo said. "Deceptive marketing is just that and it limits the information available for students to get the best deal in their college loans."

According to the New York State Department of Education, two-thirds of all four year college graduates nationwide now have loan debt, compared with less than one-third of graduates in 1993. In New York State, 59 percent of undergraduates took out loans to finance their college education. The average student graduating from a four-year college in New York owes $17,594 on graduation day.

Cuomo has been leading an ongoing investigation into the $85 billion-per-year student loan industry. In February, he requested information from more than 60 public and private colleges and universities nationwide regarding the standards they use to determine which lending companies are included on their "preferred lender" lists. Financial aid administrators often produce such lists to direct their students toward the lenders that are most preferred by the schools but may not offer the best deals for students and parents.

But the Center For Science In The Public Interest has issued a new report finding popular Chinese restaurant meals can also contain an entire day's worth of sodium -- in some cases two days' worth.

In their report, Wok Carefully, CSPI nutritionists Bonnie Liebman and Jayne Hurley put the numbers in context, point out that people eating 2,000 calories a day should limit their daily intake to 20 grams or less of saturated fat and 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium. (2,300 mg is equivalent to one teaspoon of salt.)

African Americans, anyone middle-aged or older, and people with high blood pressure should consume no more than 1,500 mg of sodium per day.

After analyzing typical menus, the nutritionists came up with the following analysis. The numbers do not include rice (200 calories per cup).

• Appetizers An order of six steamed pork dumplings has 500 calories, so each one has about 80 calories. (Steaming, as opposed to pan-frying, saves surprisingly few calories, only about 10 per dumpling.) An Egg Roll has twice the calories of a Spring Roll (200 versus 100). An order of four BBQ Spare Ribs has 600 calories, 14 grams of saturated fat, and 900 mg of sodium, making it the unhealthiest Chinese appetizer CSPI analyzed.

• Vegetables Eggplant in Garlic Sauce has 1,000 calories and 2,000 milligrams of sodium. Szechuan String Beans or Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetables, sometimes called Buddha's Delight, cuts the calories roughly in half (600 and 500 calories, respectively).

• Shrimp Shrimp dishes are among the healthiest choices on Chinese restaurant menus, according to CSPI. Szechuan Shrimp and Shrimp with Garlic Sauce each have about 700 calories; Shrimp with Lobster Sauce has only 400. But like almost everything else on the menu, these dishes have too much sodium, ranging from 2,300 mg to 3,000 mg.

• Chicken Lemon Chicken, which is battered, deep-fried, and served with a sugary yellow sauce, has 1,400 calories and 13 grams of saturated fat. CSPI says that's like eating three fried McChicken sandwiches plus a 32-oz. Coke at McDonald's. Chicken with Black Bean Sauce has half the calories (700) but more sodium (3,800 mg) than any other dish CSPI analyzed.

• Beef Orange (or Crispy) Beef has 1,500 calories, 11 grams of saturated fat, and 3,100 mg of sodium. Unfry the beef and add a heaping portion of broccoli, and the dish loses more than a third of its calories. Beef with Broccoli has about a half-pound of broccoli, which helps cut the calories to 900.

• Noodles and Fried Rice Most of these are "a load of greasy, refined carbs," says CSPI. The group's test of Chicken Chow Foon (also called Chicken Chow Fun) found that it was fairly similar to the Lo Mein and Fried Rice tested in years past. All weigh in at 1,100 to 1,500 calories and 2,700 to 3,600 mg of sodium.

"Many people recall the surprising things we reported in 1993 about Chinese dishes like Kung Pao Chicken and House Lo Mein, and those dishes certainly haven't gotten any better," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "But let's also give credit where credit is due. Many Chinese entres are loaded with healthy vegetables and lean shrimp or chicken. However, when it comes to sodium, there's no real safe harbor on the Chinese restaurant menu."

"My basic advice to diners is this: Stick with the veggie-rich and stir-fried shrimp or chicken dishes, steer clear of the entres that are basically deep-fried meat or chicken in sauce, and don't waste your calories on greasy noodles and fried rice," said Liebman.

"Leaving some of the sauce behind on the platter and taking home a doggie bag can further help keep a lid on both the calories and the salt."

Other ways of limiting salt include skipping soups (which typically have about 1,000 mg per bowl), going easy on dipping sauces, and not adding extra soy sauce at the table, according to CSPI. Chinese restaurants are also used to accommodating special requests like serving sauces on the side, or lightly sauting as opposed to deep-frying chicken in popular items like General Tso's Chicken.

Getting brown rice instead of white rice adds extra nutrients.

"In addition to cutting back on sodium, I'd like to see Chinese restaurants more regularly offer brown rice as an alternative to white rice," said Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. "Brown rice is a better source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals."

"Sodium is relatively high in some Chinese food, which increases the risk of hypertension and stroke," said Dr. Jiang He, chair of the department of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. "I urge Chinese restaurants to cook with less salt and to offer reduced-sodium soy sauce."

Prominent D.C.-area restaurateur Larry La, whose Meiwah restaurant is a favorite of former President Bill Clinton, notes that he offers a selection of steamed or lightly sauted items served with sauces on the side for those patrons who want to curb calories and salt. La also offers brown rice.

"I want to give my customers what they want, and many tell me they are looking for healthy options for their families," said La. "Providing those options is not only good for my customers, it's good for my business."

March 22, 2007
After mounting complaints that its advisory committees were dominated by members with drug industry ties, the Food and Drug Administration has tightened it rules on just who will be allowed to offer advice.

Under its draft guidance, advisors who receive money from a drug or device maker would not be allowed to vote on issues involving that company. At the same time, those who receive more than $50,000 from a company or competitor whose product is being considered would be barred from serving on committees.

The move is likely to be viewed as a retreat from FDA's previous position, defended as recently as last July. The agency is accepting public comments on the proposal for the next 60 days.

"FDA is committed to making the advisory committee process more rigorous and transparent so that the public has confidence in the integrity of the recommendations made by its advisory committees," said Randall Lutter, Ph.D., FDA's acting deputy commissioner for policy.

"Today's draft guidance document should provide more consistency in the consideration of who is eligible to participate in advisory committee meetings and would simplify the process."

FDA said it currently screens all prospective advisory committee participants before each meeting to determine whether the potential for a financial conflict of interest exists. Under law, FDA may grant a waiver when certain criteria are met, such as when the need for an individual's expertise outweighs the potential for a conflict of interest.

Under the proposed new guidelines, if an individual has disqualifying financial interests whose combined value exceeds $50,000, after applying certain exemptions, the person would generally not be considered for participation in the meeting, regardless of the need for his or her expertise.

If the financial interests are $50,000 or less, after applying certain exemptions, the individual might be recommended to participate as a non-voting member. Only individuals with no potential conflicts would be eligible to fully participate in meetings as voting members.

Financial interest means the potential for gain or loss to a person (or their family and outside affiliations) as a result of the government's action on a particular topic. Financial interests screened include, but are not limited to, stock ownership, related research and consulting arrangements.

In response to protests against expensive new royalties for Internet radio broadcasts, the U.S. Copyright Review Board (CRB) has agreed to hear requests for a new hearing on the issue.

The new payment structure was recently implemented by the CRB and created by SoundExchange, the royalty collections arm of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Under the new royalty structure, Internet-based radio stations and public radio channels would face hefty new payments that would increase each year, as well as mandatory minimum payments of $500.

Critics of the plan have said the new royalty system would put independent Internet broadcasters out of business, as their royalty costs would far outpace any revenue they earn from their stations.

SoundExchange claimed that the growth in online advertising would cover the costs of royalties for Internet broadcasters, saying that advertising for online music stations reached $500 million in 2006.

Chief Copyright Royalty Judge James Scott Sledge asked for position statements from interested parties to be filed by April 2nd. Among the challengers to the CRB's ruling was National Public Radio (NPR), which stated that the new royalty structure unfairly penalizes public radio stations as well as Internet radio.

NPR's communications vice president Andi Sporkin said that "the Board's decision to dramatically raise public radio stations' rates was based on inaccurate assumptions and lack of understanding of the issues."

"The new rates inexplicably break with the longstanding tradition of recognizing public radio's non-commercial, non-profit role, while the procedures we're being asked to now undertake for measurement are non-existent, arbitrary and costly," Sporkin said in a statement accompanying the motion.

NPR has also stated it plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit.

NPR has found itself allied with interests ranging from radio station behemoth Clear Channel to Web-based radio services like Pandora. Pandora founder Tim Westergren called the CRB decision "an utterly ridiculous ruling that renders any form of internet radio non-economic."

Discussing the issue on the Pandora site's blog, Westergren called on listeners to sign online petitions and spread the word, because "the webcasting community does not have an entrenched and powerful lobbying presence in DC, grassroots legislative pressure...is clearly our biggest ally."

The growth of Internet radio has been hailed as a watershed for the music industry, as it enables listeners to create their own music stations and expose other fans to wider varieties of music genres than typical broadcast stations play, and to share new music discoveries much more easily. Online radio play benefits musicians in more ways than just royalties, as the exposure leads to more ticket sales for live performances, purchases of merchandise, and so on.

The fight over Internet radio royalties comes at an especially grim time for the music industry, which continues to report steady declines in sales of CDs. The Wall Street Journal reported that the music industry saw sales for the first three months of 2007 drop 20 percent from their previous level in 2006.

Although digital downloading and selling of individual songs continued to register healthy growth, it wasn't enough to offset the losses from slumping CD sales.

The RIAA has claimed that the new royalty plan is designed to ensure artists get their fair share of monies from radio play, no matter the medium. But the organization has been criticized for its often heavy-handed tactics in extracting "settlements" from users of peer-to-peer download services, and trying to compel universities to help it find and prosecute students downloading music illegally, in order to keep revenue coming in.

Smaller independent artists also won't find much profit in the new royalty rates, as the shuttering of Internet stations means fewer plays for their music, which means less money. Writing for Salon.com, guitarist Stephanie Casey said that "unless you are Fall Out Boy or Bjrk or Sheryl Crow, that .04 cents per play or whatever on Internet radio isn't gonna add up to much more than buying you a latte once a week."

Turns out kicking the habit benefits more than your lungs.

Ex-smokers achieved non-smokers' level of arterial stiffness after a decade of smoking cessation, in a cross-sectional study reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

"Smoking is a major risk factor, not only for lung disease and cancer, but also for heart attack, stroke and heart failure," said lead author Noor Ahmed Jatoi, M.B.B.S., D.C.N., D.M.M.D.

"Our group has previously shown that smoking a single cigarette, passive or second-hand smoking and chronic smoking all lead to stiffer arteries, which in turn increase resistance in the blood vessels and, therefore, increase the work the heart must do."

However, it was not clear if smoking cessation would be associated with reduced arterial stiffness. Stiffness in the arteries can increase blood pressure and is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events.

The researchers studied 554 people (average age 47, 56 percent female) who had high blood pressure but had never been treated for it. Researchers divided the subjects into: current smokers (150), ex-smokers (136) and never-smokers (268).

"We categorized ex-smokers according to how long they were off cigarettes -- under one year, more than one but less than 10 years and more than 10 years of smoking cessation," said Jatoi, a Ph.D. student in clinical pharmacology at Trinity Health Sciences Centre and Hypertension Clinic at St. James's Hospital, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Researchers used Arterial Pulse Wave Analysis, a technology that measures arterial stiffness. They found that current and ex-smokers of only one year had significantly higher stiffness measurements compared with non-smokers.

In ex-smokers, duration of smoking cessation was directly related to improvement in arterial stiffness. They found some improvement after one to 10 years, but arterial stiffness parameters only reached normal levels after more than a decade of smoking cessation.

"Our study reinforces the message that smoking cessation is an important step smokers can take to enhance the quality and length of their lives. It shows both the unhealthy effects of smoking and the benefit of smoking cessation on the arterial wall," he said. "The longer one stops smoking the better." However, researchers noted that results need to be confirmed in a prospective, longitudal study -- one that follows patients over time.

Though two states have enacted laws to promote transparency in doctors' financial dealings with pharmaceutical companies, researchers say the new laws are mostly ineffective.

A study in the March 21 issue of JAMA says the mandatory disclosure of drug company payments to physicians does not provide the public with easy access to the payment information, and the information is of little use, even when the public can access it.

Interactions between the pharmaceutical industry and health care professionals often involve payments, including cash, gift certificates, meals, textbooks or conference fees. In contrast to many other professions, medicine allows payments from a company to an individual who decides whether and how often to use products produced by the company.

"To avoid undue influence, the American Medical Association recommends that gifts (but not other payments) to physicians should benefit patients and should not exceed $100 in value, a recommendation similar to those of other medical organizations and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America," according to background information in the article.

Recent legislation in five states and the District of Columbia mandated state disclosure of payments made to physicians by pharmaceutical companies. In two of these states, Vermont and Minnesota, payment disclosures are publicly available.

Joseph S. Ross, M.D., M.H.S., of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and colleagues analyzed publicly available data in Vermont, from July 2002 through June 2004, and Minnesota, from January 2002 through December 2004.

The authors found that the laws enacted by Vermont and Minnesota fail to provide the public with easy access to information about payments from pharmaceutical companies to physicians and other health care professionals.

"In Vermont, 61 percent of payments were not released to the public because pharmaceutical companies designated them as trade secrets and 75 percent of publicly disclosed payments were missing information necessary to identify the recipient," the authors write. "In Minnesota, 25 percent of companies reported in each of the three years."

The study also found that pharmaceutical companies made substantial numbers of payments of $100 or more to physicians.

"In Vermont, among 12,227 payments totaling $2.18 million publicly disclosed, there were 2,416 payments of $100 or more to physicians," the authors write. "In Minnesota, among 6,946 payments totaling $30.96 million publicly disclosed, there were 6,238 payments of $100 or more to physicians."

The authors believe that the information obtained through disclosure laws is insufficient for revealing the true pattern of payments.

"Making these payments publicly available will require more stringent laws with clear mechanisms for enforcement," they conclude.

March 21, 2007
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a recall of about 270,000 Maytag and Samsung front-loading washing machines because of a fire hazard.

Water leakage onto the electrical connections to the washing machine's thermal sensor could cause an electrical short and ignite a circuit board, the agency said.

Maytag has received five reports of incidents involving ignition in the circuit board. Samsung has received one report of an incident involving ignition in the circuit board. No injuries, fires or property damage outside the washing machine have been reported.

The recall involves certain Maytag and Samsung brand front-load washers. The Maytag washers have model numbers beginning with MAH9700 or MAH8700. The Samsung model number WF306BHW or a model number beginning with WF316. Not all serial numbers are subject to the recall. The model and serial numbers are located on a tag at the bottom of the door opening. Maytag models with a serial number ending in the last two letters identified below are subject to the recall:

Sample Maytag Serial Number: 10123456GN

Samsung models with the six-digit number 100001 through 799999 prior to a letter at the end of the serial number are subject to the recall:

Sample Samsung Serial Number: 230854AL300026B

The machines were sold by major department and appliance stores nationwide from April 2005 through August 2006 for between $1,000 and $1,200.

Consumers should immediately contact the firm for information on how to receive a free repair. Consumers should not return the washing machine to the retailer where it was purchased.

Consumer Contact: For more information, consumers can call Maytag toll-free at (800) 868-5109 between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or go to Maytag's Web site at www.washerrecall.com - Samsung customers can call (800) 515-7902 between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or go to Samsung's Web site at www.Samsung.com/washerrecall

Another subprime lender is seeking bankruptcy protection from its creditors, as the house of cards built on risky mortgages continues to collapse. People's Choice Home Loan Inc., has asked a bankruptcy court in Santa Ana, California, to give it time to reorganize.

The Irvine-based lender is the fourth subprime mortgage company to file for bankruptcy protection since December. It joins the ranks of Ownit Mortgage Solutions, Mortgage Lenders Network and ResMae Mortgage.

At the same time, other subprime lenders, such as New Century Financial, Fremont General and NovaStar Financial, have suffered heavy losses in the last 12 months.

People's Choice and its subsidiaries report about $100 million in both assets and liabities. Creditors include mainline banks and brokerages houses Wachovia Bank NA, Bear Stearns Mortgage Capital and Merrill Lynch Mortgage Lending.

Last week People's Choice pulled a registration statement it had filed with securities regulators, a sign that its snowballing financial problems had reached critical mass. The Online publication National Mortage News quotes sources as saying the company is talking to a potential investor about a sale.

Subprime lenders make loans to consumers whose credit is not good enough to get a so-called "prime" loan.

While that can be helpful, many subprime lenders developed increasingly exotic mortgages, encouraging consumers to purchase more house than they could actually afford. As a result, many homeowners -- many of whom made no down payments -- are now defaulting on their loans.

That's one of the conclusions made by the Symantec security firm in its new "Internet Security Threat Report," released yesterday (pdf file). The Cupertino, California-based company analyzed multiple trends in security and computer crime, including phishing, data breaches, identity theft and fraud, and Trojan viruses.

"Symantec has observed a fundamental shift in Internet security activity," according to an executive summary of the report's key findings. "The current threat environment is characterized by an increase in data theft and data leakage, and the creation of malicious code that targets specific organizations for information that can be used for financial gain."

Among the report's findings:

The report warned against the "increasing professionalization" and sophistication of identity thieves, who increasingly work in organized groups and approach their criminal activities with business-level acumen, as well as the proliferation of personal information and the ease with which it can be used.

"You can become a brand new American. It's frightening that it could be sold pre-packaged and ready to go like that," said Symantec Security vice-president Alfred Huger.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conducted several high-profile raids against companies that employed workers using fake identities, detaining them and in some cases separating them from their families, under the pretense of fighting identity theft. Most in the security industry felt the raids were ineffective and a distraction from the continuing proliferation of black market bazaars catering in stolen identities.

The actual levels of identity theft are difficult to categorize, as the term encompasses a number of different types of fraud, much of which can go unnoticed and unreported.

Research firms Javelin and Gartner have released studies claiming that identity theft is both on the decline and increasing. The Gartner study claimed that the selling of personal information led to the creation of "synthetic" identities, which are much harder to detect than typical forms of identity misuse.

Federal investigators say they're focused on gluten -- a protein source commonly used as filler -- as the most likely source of contamination in the 60 million cans and pouches recalled late last week.

The recalled wet-style dog and cat food was made by Menu Foods, based in Ontario, Canada. The company said it began receiving complaints of kidney failure and deaths around Feb. 20 and began running tests Feb. 27. During those tests, the company said it fed its products to 40 to 50 dogs and cats. Seven of them died. The company said the toxin appeared more deadly to cats.

As usual in cases involving contaminated food, many possible victims are already dead and buried, making it difficult for pet owners to be sure what killed their animals.

"Between January 10 and 20, I lost two rabbit beagles and on Feb. 10, I lost a lab," said Lionel of Buckhannon, W. Va. "They quit eating and drinking and became dehydrated and died within a week."

"My neighbor ran up a $300 vet bill. The vet had no idea what was happening," Lionel said. He said his dogs had eaten Big Red, one of the recalled brands.

John of El Dorado, Calif., had a similar experience. "Our dog recently died from acute renal failure, she was in good health and only 10 years old," he told ConsumerAffairs.com.

The FDA has not yet counted how many reports it has received of dead and sickened animals. The company says it has reports of 10 deaths, nine cats and one dog.

Recall Details

The recall covers dog food sold throughout North America under 51 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands, including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba.

The recalled food was also sold under many store names, including Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway.

The recall covers dog and cat food manufactured between December 3, 2006 and March 6, 2007. The recall is limited to "cuts and gravy" style pet food in cans and pouches manufactured at two of the company's United States facilities.

Here is a complete list of the recalled brands of dog and cat food. Pet owners should read it carefully. The company has established a hot-line for customer inquiries: 1-866-895-2708.

"We take these complaints very seriously and, while we are still looking for a specific cause, we are acting to err on the side of caution" said Paul K. Henderson, President and CEO, Menu Foods. "We will do whatever is necessary to ensure that our products maintain the very highest quality standards."

One major consequence of the sub-prime mortgage implosion is the difficulty many consumers with limited or impaired credit will have in obtaining mortgages.

But if suddenly tougher lending standards result in slamming doors at banks and mortgage companies, the venerable Federal Housing Administration loan might look much more inviting.

The long-established FHA loan has always been designed to help the first-time buyer purchase a home of their own. However, it fell out of favor in recent years as its natural constituency was attracted to the exotic mortgages offered by sub-prime lenders.

As a result, many consumers ended up with loans -- and houses -- they really couldnt afford.

At the urging of some in Congress, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is looking at modernizing the FHA loan to give consumers, who in the past would have obtained sub-prime mortgages, a better alternative.

Assistant Secretary for Housing Brian Montgomery urged a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee last week to pass legislation that enhances the FHA's government-insured mortgage products and "provides lower-income families safe, secure homeownership opportunities."

"Many first-time and minority homebuyers face significant challenges when trying to purchase a home. In recent years, such difficulties have resulted in many of these individuals assuming risky, adjustable-rate, sub-prime loans. The impact on African American and Latino borrowers has been particularly profound," Montgomery said.

According to 2004 HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) Data, 40 percent of African-Americans and 23 percent of Hispanics pay an interest rate three percent higher than the market rate. The Center for Responsible Lending reports that 51 percent of refinancing transitions in African American neighborhoods are sub-prime loans.

"There needs to be a mortgage alternative which will qualify a wide swath of borrowers and simultaneously provide them with the loan options they require. Everyone should have access to a safe, affordable mortgage product; and this should not change just because that person is a first-time homebuyer, a minority homebuyer, or a homebuyer with troubled credit history," Montgomery added.

FHA was created in 1934 to stimulate the housing market during the Depression. Over its long history it has financed more than 34 million homes. But as lending practices have evolved and modernized, critics have charged the FHA has been slow to adapt, and reforms are necessary to adapt the program to today's marketplace.

Specifically, critics would like to see changes that reflect the recent escalation of home values, allowing home-buyers to make smaller down payments and take out larger loans, as long as they can qualify. Currently there are limits on the sizes of FHA mortgages.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) would like to see additional changes. He introduced legislation in 2006 to allow FHA greater leeway in financing manufactured homes, which are more affordable than conventionally build houses.

These proposed changes, however, buck a significant trend. Banking regulators are busy tightening rules on sub-prime lending, virtually doing away with nothing-down, interest only loans that were in vogue as little as a year ago. Currently, FHA rules require the homeowner to put at least three percent down, and loans are limited to roughly $363,000.

But unlike sub-prime loans, FHA mortgages are not traded on Wall Street and subject to market panic attacks.

Instead, they are backed by U.S. Government bonds. But because they are administered by a government agency, they can be slow, cumbersome and bureaucratic. As a result, FHA loans fell out of favor with many realtors, who heavily influence where their clients turn for financing.

While not falling into the same sinkhole as the sub-prime lending industry, FHA is trying to become more flexible and consumer friendly. Its proposed modernization plan would create a new, risk-based insurance premium structure that would match the premium amount with the credit profile of the borrower. It would replace the current structure, in which there is standard premium amount for all borrowers.

As a result of excesses within the sub-prime mortgage industry, it will likely be harder for consumers of modest means to purchase a home. But the FHA says, with some retooling, it could provide a safe alternative for many of these would-be homebuyers.

Users of FreeConference.Com, a Web-based service that offers long-distance conference calling for the price of a single long-distance call, found itself cut off last week, as AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, and Qwest began blocking subscriber access to the service.

Consumer advocates were quick to denounce the companies' action. PennPIRG's Beth McConnell called it "a corporation's financial interests limiting consumer choice and access to legitimate, publicly available services."

FreeConference.Com enables a caller to set up a conference call for the price of a single long-distance call to Iowa or Minnesota, and then receive a call-in access number that up to 95 other callers can use for a conference.

The company's service has been popular with not-profits and small businesses that have employees in multiple states, but AT&T was incensed at what it saw as violation of its terms of service. AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel said that AT&T's wireless service is for calls "between one person and another person, not between one person and many."

But FreeConference.Com CEO Alex Cory said AT&T was simply trying to push conference callers back to its own 800-number calling service and thereby reap more profit.

"Who dominates 800-service? That would be AT&T," Cory said on the gigaom.com blog. "If free conferencing were eliminated, what would people do? Go back to 800-service conferencing."

Some blog readers commented that they could still utilize the service, and both sides confirmed that as AT&T found and blocked numbers using FreeConference, the latter created new numbers for subscribers, thus getting around AT&T's efforts to block them.

"This is an unpleasant bump in the road for us, but does not threaten our service. We are offering alternative numbers to affected customers and business is continuing as usual," Cory said.

Termination Fees

The root of the dispute is the termination fees large telecom companies pay to small rural carriers to foot development of telecom service in low-population areas. Services such as FreeConference.com can set up agreements to drive services to the smaller carriers and bring them more money, while the major telecoms pay the bill. AT&T claims such moves are fraudulent and has sued a similar service, FuturePhone, in an attempt to recoup its losses.

Qwest, the local phone company in much of the West, also filed suit against FreeConference.com and FuturePhone, claiming that "untoward" and "inappropriate" traffic brought by the services and others like it cost it upwards of $10 to $15 million.

Given that AT&T and Verizon both sought relief from paying into the Universal Service Fund -- specifically designated to pay for development of telecom services to rural areas -- and then promptly tried to institute "regulatory cost" charges that went directly to telecom coffers, observers of the latest dust-up were not convinced that AT&T's motives were altrustic.

A writer for the TechDirt blog said that, "The problem isn't with these services, but the bad regulations that allowed the small telcos to charge crazy termination fees in the first place. If the big telcos have a problem with it, they should take it up with whoever put those laws in place."

Net Neutrality, Privacy, And Telco Control

The FreeConference.com issue also demonstrates to some the need for telephone regulations that, like "net neutrality" principles on the Web, prevent telephone carriers from discriminating against services they dislike. If telecoms like AT&T can shut off access to phone services any time it likes, they reason, what's to stop it from doing the same to Internet services?

AT&T had agreed to maintain a principle of net neutrality for its basic Internet services as a condition of the megamerger with BellSouth, but observers noted the agreement might not apply to its Internet-over-TV offerings such as Uverse, which AT&T is banking on to deliver it millions in new revenue.

Telecom-friendly FCC chair Kevin Martin had also intimated that he would not push for enforcement of the net neutrality concession, a move that put him on the hot seat during a recent Congressional hearing into FCC activity. Democrats accused Martin, a Republican, of showing excessive favoritism -- as opposed to run-of-the-mill favoritism -- to business interests over consumers and not aggressively investigating issues such as the NSA's accessing domestic phone records of millions of Americans with AT&T's help.

AT&T was a prime mover in the NSA's plans, and has aggressively fought a multitude of lawsuits and inquiries into the level of its involvement with the NSA program, with both AT&T and the government claiming that the requests for information could cause harm to national security. In San Francisco, Judge Vaughn Walker recently ruled that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) could proceed in its case against AT&T, though he ruled that documents related to the case would have to stay sealed for the time being.

Critics charged the FreeConference.Com dispute, the NSA spy case, and the ongoing net neutrality issue all demonstrate the clear imbalance of power telecom incumbents enjoy -- the ability to shut off services at will and block inquiries into unscrupulous practices. When there are so few players -- now largely unregulated -- in the telecom market, it's not so easy to simply take your business elsewhere, they noted.

"That Cingular (AT&T), Qwest, and Sprint have decided that they can use access to networks as leverage in a business dispute is scary," wrote Aaron Barlow for ePluribus Media. "[N]ot because we are helpless and unable to find alternatives, but because their mindset could be applied to other networks, completely undermining the confidence we have developed in the system of networks that underlies not only this nation but the world."

Among the affected brands are Iams, Eukanuba and Nutro.

The company said it was initiating a precautionary recall of portion of the dog and cat food it manufactured between December 3, 2006 and March 6, 2007. The recall is limited to "cuts and gravy" style pet food in cans and pouches manufactured at two of the company's United States facilities. The products are both manufactured and sold under private-label and are contract-manufactured for some national brands.

"Over the past several days, we have received feedback in the United States, raising concerns about pet food manufactured since early December, and its impact on the renal health of the pets consuming the products," the company said in a statement.

Menu Foods says it began a battery of technical tests as soon as the first complaints came in, but has not identified any problems.

They did find, however, that timing of the production associated with these complaints coincides with the introduction of an ingredient from a new supplier. The ingredient was dropped shortly after this discovery, the company said, and production since then has been undertaken using ingredients from another source.

"We take these complaints very seriously and, while we are still looking for a specific cause, we are acting to err on the side of caution" said Paul K. Henderson, President and CEO, Menu Foods. "We will do whatever is necessary to ensure that our products maintain the very highest quality standards."

In a scene reminiscent of the recent peanut butter salmonella scare, U.S. retailers frantically pulled the recalled products from store shelves.

Consumers can hardly complete any kind of transaction without a sales person providing some kind of pitch to seal the deal. A new study finds sales people would be better off keeping their mouths shut.

"Consumers today look at everything with a skeptical eye," said Peter Darke of Florida State University's College of Business. "Before they even set foot in a store, they already are inclined to mistrust the use of flattery by salespeople, as well as claims made in ads they've seen in the media."

Darke and his associates have just published a paper that examines the reactions of consumers to flattery from store clerks. It appears in the Journal of Consumer Psychology and explores whether consumers decide a salesperson is untrustworthy through a deliberate or an automatic decision-making process.

To gather data, the researchers ran three experiments that involved consumers buying sunglasses at a sales kiosk. Of the 102 study participants, 37 were male and 65 female.

In the first experiment, sales clerks flattered consumers before their purchase. During the second, sales clerks flattered consumers after their purchase. In both instances, they used three statements:

• "That's a great pair of sunglasses."
• "I think they look good on you."
• "They really suit you."

With the third experiment -- which acted as a control -- sales clerks chatted with consumers but didn't offer any flattery.

After buying a pair of sunglasses, participants then completed a questionnaire that asked how trustworthy they found the sales clerk.

"Consistently, the study participants said that even when it was obvious the compliment didn't serve any underlying sales motive, they still didn't trust what the sales clerk had to say," Darke said.

Such suspicion of others' motives is typical in a society that is absolutely drowning in marketing campaigns and sales pitches, he said.

"Generally speaking, it has become the consumer's default position to react negatively to what is perceived as an attempt to manipulate him or her," Darke said. "Even when there isn't an obvious motive for a salesperson's flattery, such as generating a sale, we are programmed to assume the worst."

And speaking of consumer skepticism, Darke has published a second paper that shows how deceptive advertisements can have the effect of making consumers cynical about all advertising, not just the ones making false claims.

That paper shows how deceptive advertising engenders distrust that negatively affects people's responses to subsequent advertising from both the same source and other sources. The paper, just published in the Journal of Marketing Research, indicates that the negative effects of ad deception are relatively long-lasting in the sense that they are observed for additional advertisements encountered 24 hours after the initial deception.

"Deceptive ads induce negative beliefs about advertising and marketing in general, thereby undermining the credibility of further advertising," Darke said. "For companies that advertise, the lesson is clear: They must do a better job of guaranteeing the accuracy of their own and others marketers' advertising content if they want consumers to keep paying attention."