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2024 Pre-Election Analysis: Consumer Product Safety
September 24, 2024 | Advisory | By Christian Tamotsu Fjeld, R. Neal Martin, Charles Samuels
Read about how the upcoming November elections could shape consumer product safety laws and regulations, depending on the outcome of the presidential race and whether one party takes control of Congress.
CPSC Adopts Final Rules for Button Cell and Coin Batteries with Sweeping Requirements
September 25, 2023 | Blog | By Charles Samuels, Evelyn French, Matthew Tikhonovsky
On September 11, 2023, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted to adopt sweeping safety requirements, pursuant to Reese’s Law, for button cell and coin batteries and products containing these batteries or designed to contain them. In a direct final rule, the Commission adopted ASNI/UL 4200A-2023 as the mandatory safety standard for button cell and coin batteries, which includes extensive construction, performance, labeling, and certification requirements.
Recent Developments Signal Headwinds for Homeopathic Drug Products
June 26, 2023 | Blog | By Joanne Hawana
Homeopathic drugs have an unusual status in the United States. On the one hand, they are incorporated into the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) within the definition of “drug,” which specifically includes articles recognized in the official Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States (a historical perspective can be found in this ScienceInsider article from 2015, when government scrutiny was beginning to increase). But on the other hand, there is growing consensus that the effectiveness of such products is not supported by scientific evidence and that they are, in many cases, mere placebos that do not actually treat the patient’s medical conditions; in the worst cases, they contain harmful ingredients that may cause serious injury.