Alert–product being used improperly in bedroom at 123 Maple St. The publicity materials for the Food Marketing Institute show at McCormick Place in May promise a session on the “Evolution of the Bar Code”: “Imagine the potential of a bar code that is able to continuously transmit information about itself via the Internet throughout its ‘life.’ Distribution centers will automatically receive shipment instructions, stores will receive instantaneous replenishment instructions, and microwaves will receive cooking instructions–all without human interaction…. And this is just the beginning.”
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Some alternative. “Traditional herbal remedies were purchased in the USA, Vietnam, and China,” write Gregory Garvey, Gary Hahn, Richard Lee, and Raymond Harbison in the March issue of the International Journal of Environmental Health Research. “The Asian remedies evaluated contained levels of arsenic, lead, and mercury that ranged from toxic (49%) to those exceeding public health guidelines for prevention of illness (74%) when consumed according to the directions given in or on the package.”
Are poor people doomed by globalization? Will national governments race each other to the bottom in order to attract multinational business? Northwestern University political scientist Benjamin Page and colleagues ask these questions in a paper issued by NU’s Institute for Policy Research (“Working Papers,” Fall) and find that “this race has not, to any great extent, materialized.” In their view, U.S. government programs can be divided into two groups. Some are “relatively vulnerable to global competitive pressures,” including the corporate income tax, social security, medicare, and medicaid. Others are “much less vulnerable,” because they have a net economic benefit over the long run; they include preschools, infant and child health and nutrition, and the earned income tax credit.
