Food and Drug Administration

And Just Where Was Tinker Bell In All This?

Salty Sourcing from the Chron

PETCO Food Seized by FDA

Money and Masa

A few words with underground rapper/tamale kingpin Chingo Bling

Sued By AG, Texas Company Takes Its Game Elsewhere

A few words with underground rapper/tamale kingpin Chingo Bling

Fen-Phen Side Effects: Irritable Lawyers

A few words with underground rapper/tamale kingpin Chingo Bling

Cameron Frye Has a Big Idea

And he's put his own money behind it. But who's Cameron Frye?

A Bitter Pill

A Houston inventor says alcohol-free medicines aren't alcohol-free at all, and could harm you

Mission Impossible

Even without the low pay, high turnover and oppressive conditions, city health inspectors can't manage the load

Dealing with Adversity

Even without the low pay, high turnover and oppressive conditions, city health inspectors can't manage the load

Immune to Reason

Hundreds of thousands of Texas children, including 250,000 newborn babies, are routinely vaccinated against hepatits B each year. Why? Good question.

Cancer Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski Sees Himself as a Crusading Researcher, Not a Quack

He's treated thousands of people from all over the world, so why can't he get FDA approval?

Dickens on the Strand

Galveston’s holiday festival goes back to Brit basics this year

Baby Blues

Lisa Collins took the Paxil her doctor prescribed. There was supposed to be no problem with her continuing it during her pregnancy. Now, it seems, there was.

One Dead Guinea Pig

A bad reaction to a drug trial sparks an investigation into Houston's Fabre Clinic and its founder

Doctor Nice

Steven Hotze uses a warm, easygoing manner to peddle natural hormones to women, at thousands of dollars a pop. So who cares about credentials or documented results?

Brave New Art

Artists take on corporations and the government in "Thought Crimes"

Letters

Artists take on corporations and the government in "Thought Crimes"

Exposed Nerve

Cyberonics has implanted its pacemaker in thousands of epileptics. It wants to expand to the depression market. Still needed: an accounting of those who died or were injured after receiving its implant.

Sex, Death and Oysters

Beneath the muddy waters of Galveston Bay lies one of the greatest seafood treasure troves on earth

Bloodless Coup

There'll be no waivers for patients in this experimental blood-substitute program

Med Check

Texas can't decide whether to pay for drug-resistance tests that could prolong the lives of those with HIV. For John Termine, it's already too late.

Fish Fraud

Passing off cheap fish for expensive red snapper is against the law. But no one enforces the regulations. So Texas restaurants are free to rip you off.

No More Waiting Room

A mother fights for a therapeutic dive for all who need it

Image Augmentation

Plastic surgeon Franklin Rose saves his best makeover for himself

Good Vibrations

Plastic surgeon Franklin Rose saves his best makeover for himself

9/9/09: Songs With a Certain Number in the Title

​As Hair Balls pointed out, we've only got three more of these weird number/same number/same number days left this century after today. Such chronological repetition appeals to the hidden obsessive-compulsive in all of us, so join us as we wash our hands nine times, lock the door nine times, and l ... More >>

FDA to Ban Raw Gulf Oysters in the Summer

​You won't be eating raw live Gulf oysters in the summer anymore if a promised FDA ban takes effect. At the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference meeting in New Hampshire on Saturday, an FDA official announced that as of 2011, the agency would no longer allow fresh, live oysters from the ... More >>

The Shameless Chef: DIY Shepherd's Pie

​Welcome to the first installment of The Shameless Chef, a new feature that will provide simple, hearty, creative recipes for the average person. Because, let's face it, real cooking is not for normal people. Real cooking requires difficult-to-come-by things such as "knowledge" and "ingredient ... More >>

Gulf Oyster Ban Hysteria

​"A couple of months would have been okay, but five months is too much," oysterman Misho Ivic said about the newly announced FDA summer oyster ban. Oystermen were taken by surprise last weekend when the FDA went over the head of the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Commission and announced an a ... More >>

This Week In Deliciousness

Liven up your Halloween parties this year with some carne asada con silly string.​ Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we defiantly eat summer sausage in the winter and we don't care who knows it. We kicked off this week at a sort of cookout triathlon with a plot ... More >>

Spotlight on Desserts

​With winter comes that extra sumpthin'-sumpthin' that keeps us warm at night. It's called the dessert layer. That's right: As the temperature drops, so does our metabolism. (Thud.) And while we fall in and out of love with desserts on a regular basis, the current State of Sweet around town is ... More >>

Feds Sue Houston Maker Of Egg Rolls For Health Violations

​Chung's Egg Rolls of Houston says their egg rolls are of "gourmet quality," but now they're being sued by the federal government over claims of unsanitary conditions at their plant.Chung's is one of the major makers of frozen egg rolls in the country, but the Food & Drug Administration is see ... More >>

Cheese Contaminated With Staph Hits Houston Shelves

Actual cheese not pictured. In fact, that gorgonzola looks pretty tasty.​There might be a reason Nicaragua and Honduras aren't known for their fine cheeses. And no one seems more determined to make sure the Central American nations continue to hold the dubious title of "Countries I Probably Wo ... More >>

Cheese Contaminated With Staph Hits Houston Shelves

Actual cheese not pictured. In fact, that gorgonzola looks pretty tasty.​There might be a reason Nicaragua and Honduras aren't known for their fine cheeses. And no one seems more determined to make sure the Central American nations continue to hold the dubious title of "Countries I Probably Wo ... More >>

Brain Toniq

​Advertised as the "clean and intelligent think drink," Brain Toniq at first reminded me of those cure-all potions sold by itinerant quacks in the early nineteenth century. I spotted it on the shelves of a local health food store and, feeling a bit fuzzy-brained myself from reading too much Br ... More >>

Brain Toniq

​Advertised as the "clean and intelligent think drink," Brain Toniq at first reminded me of those cure-all potions sold by itinerant quacks in the early nineteenth century. I spotted it on the shelves of a local health food store and, feeling a bit fuzzy-brained from reading too much Bruno LaT ... More >>

Warning Labels: Six More That Are Desperately Needed

Not just cigarettes​So the U.S. Federal Drug Administration does nothing to monitor the financial conflicts of interest of researchers who run clinical trials on human test subjects; can't adequately inspect foreign manufacturing plants; and has allowed eggs and peanuts to become lethal frick ... More >>

Four Loko On The Run; It's Time For Substitutes

Four Loko: Accept all substitutes​The makers of Four Loko, Phusion Projects, said in a statement this week that they will be pulling the stimulants and caffeine from it's blends of alcohol and liquid death in the coming of weeks to side-step a proposed government ban on the drinks. Phusion l ... More >>

Boom Town: Trying Out Boom Boom

Boom Boom boom, take it back to your room​In the wake of the Four Loko odyssey weeks back, I started getting weird offers through e-mail and Twitter for other energy drinks and novelty products. Once you let out the dirty secret that you will try anything for journalistic voyeurism, it's bound ... More >>

Spike Your Holiday Party with Whipped Lightning

thehollywoodgossip.com We predict Whipahol will be topping more than pies. Ali Larter in Varsity Blues (1999) ​"I imagine this is what alcoholics think clouds taste like." -- avclub.com taste test Move over, Four Loko. Meet Whipped Lighting. It's nitrous oxide-propelled alcohol (a.k.a. Whip ... More >>

Four Loko Madness On Rice Campus: EMS Calls Jump, Friends Left Abandoned

Sammy the Owl is drunk and abandoned​The scourge of Four Loko is turning Rice University into a depraved, body-strewn landscape where desperate students guzzle the possibly deadly drink with scant consideration of the niceties of society. At least that's the only conclusion we can draw from a ... More >>

What's So Damn Controversial About Cleaner, Safer Food?

​The plant was filthy and infested with vermin, with holes as large as 2 ½ feet in the ceilings leaking water and runoff from the air conditioner units onto the finished product stored below. Records posted on the web by attorney Bill Marler show that executives at Peanut Corporation of Ameri ... More >>

All I Want For Christmas Is Food Poisoning

​Christmas is over, but indulging in its confectionary delights might have left some with quite a foul aftertaste from an unwanted case of food poisoning. Whole Foods and the U.S. FDA have issued a recall for gingerbread houses produced by Rolf's Patisserie and sold at Whole Foods after Novemb ... More >>

Food Safety Modernization Act Passes, But at What Cost?

This...probably won't happen to your friendly local farm. Geez, Alex Jones...​Yesterday afternoon, President Obama signed what's being called "one of the most expansive food regulation bills in living memory," the Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA), effectively creating a new arm of the Food ... More >>

Come and Bake It

Local movement fights for cottage food bill.

A New Law to Fight the Cantaloupes of Death

That cantaloupe is POISON!​Sure, today may be World Rabies Day, but that's not the only deadly disease you need to worry about in this dangerous time of ours: In case you haven't heard, now even cantaloupe can kill you. A bacteria called listeria contaminated cantaloupes in Colorado (say that ... More >>

FDA Needs Money to Fight Cantaloupes of Death

That cantaloupe is POISON!​In case you haven't heard, now even cantaloupe can kill you. A bacteria called listeria contaminated cantaloupes in Colorado (say that three times fast), turning the delicious melons into orange orbs of death. The CDC says 13 people have died as a result of what is n ... More >>

Down the Hatch

The Texas Attorney General's Office says a drugmaker lied in order to push an antipsychotic on foster children. So why are kids as young as three still taking the drug?

This Week in Deliciousness

Talk about deliciousness. She stole my truck, my mobile hot dog stand... and my heart.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where bright, peppy morning-show humor goes to die. We started the week off right with a look at a classy new Italian joint with the unfortunate n ... More >>