Food and agriculture roundup

  • Steve Chapman on FDA salt reduction initiative [Tribune/syndicated] Canada: “Health minister takes sodium-reduction plan off the table” [Calgary Herald] Flashback: FDA holds first hearing on regulating salt content in food [2007, Medical News Today] Discussion of my piece last week [Adler/Volokh, Instapundit]
  • More on McDonald’s sidestepping of San Francisco would-be Happy Meal ban [Fair Warning, earlier; background here, here, here, here, etc.]
  • “Caveat Venditor: Cottage Food Laws Great in Theory, Often Less So in Practice” [Baylen Linnekin of pro-freedom Keep Food Legal, who guestblogged at Reason last week]
  • Rather than get government out of way, left’s farm bill (“Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act”) would cut small/local/organic growers in on more USDA programs [Obama Foodorama, Linnekin]
  • Good riddance to monopoly powers of the Canadian Wheat Board [CBC]
  • Texas now allows home bakers to sell their wares [Austin Chronicle via @pointoflaw]
  • Widespread opposition to new Department of Labor proposal to ban kids from much work on farms [Nebraska Outback]

December 7 roundup

  • Debate on medical malpractice between Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute) and Shirley Svorny (Cato Institute) [PoL]
  • Lawyers, accountants have done well from litigation-ridden Pearlman Ponzi aftermath [Orlando Sentinel]
  • Book drop “inherently dangerous”, says rape victim’s family suing library designers [Florida, LISNews]
  • “The iTunes Class Action Lawsuit You’ll Never Hear About”[NJLRA] “Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado” [Karlsgodt]
  • Another tot accused of sexual harassment, this time a first grader [Boston Herald, earlier (six year old’s “assault”)]
  • Profile of lawyer who defends fair use of clips for documentary makers [ABA Journal]

SEIU to Washington legislators: raise taxes or we’ll keep suing you

“Washington [the state] is getting hit with so many lawsuits over budget cuts that it’s not clear at times who controls the state’s purse strings: lawmakers or the court system. … Overall, the state has been sued more than a dozen times because of cuts lawmakers made in recent years to curtail state spending and balance the budget.” A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the groups suing the state over cuts, describes program cuts as “violating people’s rights” and says the state should raise revenue if it doesn’t want to be sued. [Seattle Times] (& Bainbridge).

Expanding mental diagnoses: the legal rub

As part of its revision of its influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the American Psychiatric Association is proposing to lower diagnostic thresholds for some conditions and recognize other entirely new (and sometimes controversial) disorders. That will have implications for the coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws, as I explain in a new post at Cato at Liberty. (& Alkon, Alex Adrianson/InsiderOnline)

December 6 roundup