Food and Drug Administration

Monster Energy Drink Possibly Linked To Five Deaths

The FDA is investigating reports of five deaths that may be linked to Monster Energy, the popular caffeine-and-taurine beverage in a big black can.A lawsuit against Corona-based Monster Beverage claims that a 14-year-old Maryland girl with a heart condition died after drinking two cans of the energy ... More >>

Genetically Modified Food Debate At Chapman University Today!

Whether to pass or strike down Proposition 37, an initiative requiring labels on some genetically modified foods, is the subject of a debate that will take place at Chapman University this afternoon.If the proposition passed, it would make California the first state that mandates GMOs (genetically m ... More >>

Pod People

[Ask Exene] Are those nonviolent drug offenders living next door, or aliens from outer space?

Robot Doctors Infiltrate OC Hospitals, Just Like the Mayans Said They Would

If you thought your doctor had cold hands when he or she asked you to turn and cough, wait until RP-VITA gets you in its grasp.Developed by the makers of the Roomba, the Remote Presence Virtual Independent Telemedicine Assistant that just got a test drive at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach does for ... More >>

How to Make Real Absinthe

[Summer Guide 2012] Make, then drink the real stuff!

No More Pounding The 57? MIT Team Invents Non-Stick Ketchup Bottle Coating

We've all got a ketchup bottle method, whether it's shaking the bejeesus out of it, pounding the damn "57" until our palms turn red or using a butter knife to scrape the stuff out. Or we opt for those squeezable plastic bottles, which become useless and gassy about three-quarters of the way through. ... More >>

AeroShot Pure Energy: Inhalable Caffeine?

[Trendzilla] The pros and cons of getting your fix via a puff

Greening the Revolution Feeds Your Head About Farming Around the World

​Agribusiness reaps record wealth. Starving protesters cry for affordable food. Farmers and farm workers find themselves caught in the middle.But, as the documentary Greening the Revolution shows, farmers and workers are organized, fighting back and implementing their own sustainable alternativ ... More >>

This Week in Food: Wolverine, Dumb Health Inspectors, and Smokers!

Flickr user flavouz​You know what Friday is: summation time! Highlights after the jump!

FDA: Cut Tomatoes Are Potentially Hazardous Food

Flickr user sliceofchicDanger, Will Robinson!​Most of the "food police" rules that we occasionally sneer about here at Stick A Fork In It aren't promulgated at the local, county or even state level: the federal Food and Drug Administration's rules reach nationwide, and when they say a food is pote ... More >>

San Francisco Health Officials Ban Restaurant from Selling Grasshopper Tacos

Flickr user christine zenino​San Francisco is going to play quite a role in my coming book on the history of Mexican food in the United States--and that's all I'm going to say about that right now. But Baghdad by the Bay is in the Mexi-food news right now, because pendejo health inspectors have as ... More >>

Allergan Wants The FDA To Approve Lap-Bands For Teens

​In another attempt to expand the fatty pool for its popular Lap-Band devices, Allergan Inc. is now targeting a younger set.  The Irvine-based pharmaceutical company has asked the Food and Drug Administration to allow the weight-loss surgery for those as young as 14, the Los Angeles Times rep ... More >>

[UPDATED with Autopsy Results] Two Teens in Huntington Beach Found Dead Alongside Empty Can of Four Loko

​UPDATE, MAY 17, 3:49 A.M.: Autopsy and toxicological reports reveal that the two teens found dead in a Huntington Beach apartment in January overdosed on prescription drugs, with alcohol contributing to one of the deaths, The Orange County Register reports. Aaron Saenz, 15, died from t ... More >>

FDA Tells Cilantro Growers Not to Allow So Much Damn Salmonella on its Cilantro

Flickr user QFamily​Ah, cilantro: soapy scourge of millions of taste buds, a big mystery to the rest of us. And inordinate high salmonella carrier? That's what the Food and Drug Administration is alleging in a letter to the American cilantro industry, in the governmental version of a pimp slap.

Lawsuit Demands a Refund For Every Person Who Purchased a Four Loko

​Poor Four Loko. All it ever wanted was to get us sloshed and hyper with a single can. Now, not only has it been stripped from shelves and replaced with a decaf version that's totally lame, the company that makes it has been smacked with a massive class-action lawsuit that demands, among other thi ... More >>

[UPDATED] Two Teens in Huntington Beach Found Dead Alongside Empty Can of Four Loko

​UPDATE, JAN. 25, 9:41 A.M.: The victims have been identified as Aaron Saenz, 15, of Westminster, and Chelsea Taylor, 16, of Huntington Beach. Their bodies were found at an apartment in the 15500 block of Huntington Village Lane, LA Times reports.ORIGINAL POST, JAN. 24, 4:21 P.M.: A 15-year-old ... More >>

Allergan Seeks to Expand Fatty Pool for Lap-Bands

​Allergan Inc., which is already rolling in it thanks to remedies such as Botox, Latisse and Natrelle breast implants, aims to roll in even more of it by increasing the fatty pool for its Lap-Band weight-loss devices.The Irvine-based pharmaceutical company wants the government to decrease the mini ... More >>

Alcoholic Chocolate Milk Now On Sale at Costco

​If this was the year of anything, it's the year of creative and not-so-creative alcohol-based products. You may have heard of Four Loko, the caffeinated alcoholic energy drink that became the subject of bans and dire FDA warnings. Then there was CREAM, the booze-infused whipped topping that our ... More >>

Four Loko Loses Caffeine--and its Cool-Factor

​Four Loko is about to become as hip as Smirnoff Ice.  The popular caffeine-spiked alcoholic beverage, commonly known as "Blackout in a Can,"    has been deemed unsafe by the FDA. A warning letter was sent to Chicago-based Phusion Projects, which makes the stuff.

Got Migraines? Try Botox, Says Irvine Drugmaker

​There's some good news and bad news for Allergan, Inc. Bad news: The Irvine-based pharmaceutical company tops the list of Department of Justice fraud settlements in the 2010 fiscal year, having lost $600 million in an October lawsuit that accused them of marketing Botox for "off-label" uses.Good ... More >>

Judge Greenlights $600 Million Fine Against Irvine-Based Maker of Botox

​Allergan, Inc.'s misleading marketing cost them big time. A judge this week approved the $600 million fine feds previously announced against the Irvine-based pharmaceutical company whose most popular product is Botox. But don't cry too hard for Allergan: Botox earns the company $1.3 billion in an ... More >>

Irvine Botox Maker Fined $600 Million, Irvine Viagra Maker Gets Competition in a Cup

​Two giant drug companies with a heavy presence in Irvine this week suffered separate blows, possibly to their bottom lines.One took a hit from the U.S. government, the other from a new wonder product out of the U.K.As part of a settlement with the Food and Drug Administration, Irvine-based Allerg ... More >>

East Coast Chain Introduces A Sandwich With Two Sandwiches as Bun

Friendlys.com​This is not a joke.  Behold what the success of KFC's Double Down has wrought. As an obvious escalation of the fast food gimmickry that is KFC's bunless sandwich, an east coast chain called Friendly's has introduced a so-called "Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt", wherein two gril ... More >>

Dr. David Kessler: The End of Overeating

Newport Beach Public Library

Eyelash Perms? Yep

[Trendzilla] The FDA might not approve, but you do end up with curlier lashes

UPDATED: Daryn Peterson, Fake Doctor Boosted in Register Story, Sentenced to Jail and Probation

​Daryn Peterson, who was convicted in December of posing as a doctor and claiming to heal serious or incurable diseases including cancer and AIDS, was sentenced today to 270 days in jail and five years probation, and is prohibited from working in any medical field or selling any vitamins or pharma ... More >>

Canadian Chain To Open 30 Units In Orange County

Photo Courtesy of Chain Leader​As with Rumbi, Cafe Rio, et al, the out-of-state chains are continuing their invasion of Orange County. There's now word that a Canadian chain called Freshii has just signed a deal to open 30 locations of itself in Orange County over the next six years. There a ... More >>

Have Your Robo-Responder Contact My Robo-Responder and Set Up a Virtual Lunch, Madame Senator

This is either Sen. Dianne Feinstein or her screen saver.​Have you ever been leaving a political website when a pop-up asks you to weigh in on an issue? And have you ever decided it would be just as quick to click a couple boxes indicating your support/opposition as it would be to close the pop-up ... More >>

"Natural Doctor" featured in OC Register Charged With Being a Fake

Daryn Peterson Daryn Peterson must have been flying pretty high on June 10, when he opened the Orange County Register and read Courtney Perkes' feature story on him, "A Rejection of Western Medicine." Today, the 37-year-old Las Vegas resident was arrested and charged with unauth ... More >>

Barbara Coe Adds Another Jewel to Her Crown of Conspiracies

​It would take me a while to list all the vile things and views California Coalition for Immigration Reform head Barbara Coe believes, but a short list includes: Reconquista, Sikhs and Muslims deserve deportation, Obama wasn't born in the United States, Sonny Bono was murdered because he knew too ... More >>

FDA Wags Finger at Diet Coke's Vitamin Claims

The FDA has issues with Coca Cola's new Diet Coke Plus.  It sent the company a letter earlier this month about the drink, which Coke purports to have a "refreshing taste...AND several essential nutrients" with "each 8 fl. oz. serving of Diet Coke Plus provid(ing) 15% of your RDI ... More >>

Is Orange County Injecting Itself Into a "Judicial Hellhole"?

Our stuck-up neighbor to the north, Los Angeles County, is among America's leading "Judicial Hellholes," which is what the American Tort Reform Association calls finalists on its annual list of the nation's most unfair civil court jurisdictions. But don't gloat too hard, Orange Countians, because we ... More >>

Adderall Treats ADHD But Can Lead to Addiction. One Clinic Tries to Help OC Kick 'College Crack'

Sunday's Headlines & Surprises

'Biggest racist ever' back on Anaheim school board: Last week, the Anaheim Union School District appointed Harald Martin to an open board seat created by the death of Denise Mansfield-Reinking. I managed to obtain the board's top-secret qualifications checklist for Martin: Racist, check. Uneducate ... More >>

Reeejected, from China

Once, the only worry Americans felt when consuming products made in China, was that they were complete crap. But times have changed, and with recent hysteria over tainted dog food and toothpaste mixed with industrial compounds, we have demanded that the Chinese do something to make us feel secure ag ... More >>

Asleep at the Wheel...

… or, Drive, He Snored. Ever feel you spend all your waking hours in your car?  Well, thanks to modern science, now you can also spend your non-waking hours trapped in traffic.  The Associated Press reports: All sleeping pills, including the blockbusters Ambien and Lunesta, may s ... More >>

Commie Girl

Real Live Boys: The snowflakes make us crazy

Diary of a Mad County

May 30 - June 6

Prince Valeant and Mary Jane

Valeant Pharmaceuticals, based out of Costa Mesa, wants to give cancer patients the munchies. The FDA has just approved Valeant's Cesamet, already on sale in Canada as Nabilone, to moderate nausea and vomiting in those undergoing chemotherapy. A Belgian company has made a similar project, Marinol ... More >>

Totally Tubular

Numbers from the early part of the century

Healthy Inc.

Sidneys Cafe rides the resurgent health-food wave

We Must Have Syph

Or the far right will have won

Natural Selection

Survival of the fittest at the Natural Products Expo

FDA FUs Plan B

Plan Your Unplanned Sex Accordingly

Of Mice and Menstruation

Or Venus in Fur, with Convenient Slits

Theres Got to Be a Morning After

Emergency contraception may go over-the-counter

Time for a Plan B

Do you have your morning-after pill?

No Gay Blood, Please

Crisis or not, only straights can donate to the Red Cross

Baked Alaska Airlines

The Talking Drug