Lawsuit Aimed at Stopping Junk-Food Marketing to Children

Kellogg Company Makes Historic Commitment, Adopting Nutrition Standards For Marketing Foods To Children

Advocacy Groups and Parents Applaud Efforts, Drop Plans to Sue

WASHINGTON: Kellogg Company will adopt nutrition standards for the foods it advertises to young children, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), and two Massachusetts parents will not proceed with a lawsuit against the company.

Foods advertised on media including TV, radio, print, and third-party Web sites that have an audience of 50 percent or more children under age 12 will have to meet Kellogg's new nutrition standards, which require that one serving of the food has: (for more information click on the title of this posting)

Can we improve peer review ?

We have blatantly taken this blog topic from the pages of The Scientist. It seems a good idea to have this discussion.

How should NIH improve peer review? [And we add] How should Canadian research groups improve peer review?

The original post (below) came from Ivan Oransk

Today (June 08, 2007) the NIH announced that it was establishing two working groups to examine its peer review process. That process has been under increased scrutiny recently, as study sections have needed to read more and more grant applications with every cycle. And with NIH funding flat, it's no longer good enough to be in the top 30% or so to get funded; in some study sections, it's close to 10%. So many scientists may find the examination welcome.

In 2005, in the pages of The Scientist, David Kaplan proposed a number of ways to improve peer review at the NIH. What do you think of his suggestions, which include decreasing the length of the research plan to between two and four pages so that 20 to 30 reviews for each application could be solicited, and doing away with committee meetings? Where do you suggest the new committees look for improvements? Give The Scientist your ideas by commenting on The Scientist blog or provide your comments using the tools below.

Coordination among levels of governments is almost non-existent.

There has not been an era in history when the importance of public health has been more critical than it is today. Hugh Tilson and Bobbie Berkowitz lay out the challenges.

Here's Challenge 1: the public health infrastructure, basically rests with governments at the national, state, provincial and local levels. Why is it not surprising that coordination among these levels is almost non-existent and certainly insufficient for a collaborative plan to emerge easily in the event of an incident of "national significance"? In neither country has the national government been able to take the lead in driving solutions to public health initiatives.