Feds Announce New Food Safety Strategies

Steps outlined for leafy greens, tomatoes, melons and ground beef

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have announced new strategies designed to safeguard the food Americans eat every day.

Three draft guidances prepared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an agency within HHS, are aimed at minimizing or eliminating contamination in leafy greens, tomatoes, and melons that can cause foodborne illnesses.

"These proposed controls provide a guide for growers and processors to follow so they may better protect their produce from becoming contaminated," Sebelius told a group of growers, consumers, businesses, food safety advocates, and others gathered at the Eastern Market, a public fresh-food market in Washington, D.C.

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~Sandy G.

Fender Recalls SWR Bass Amplifiers

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~Sandy G.

Recalls

Crosley, Frigidaire, Kelvinator, Kenmore, Wascomat, and White-Westinghouse Clothes Washers Recalled

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Little Tikes Recalls Clubhouse Swing Sets

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Domestications Recalls Bed Steps

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~Sandy G.

Lawsuit Seeks Warning Labels for Hot Dogs

Dangers of processed meat cited in class-action suit

By Jon Hood, ConsumerAffairs.com

Many modern-day baseball stadiums prohibit smoking, but cancerous danger apparently still lurks around the corner: an anti-meat consumer group alleges in a class-action that hot dogs pose serious health risks and need to carry warning labels.

The lawsuit was filed by The Cancer Project in Essex County, New Jersey on Wednesday. Among the named defendants are Nathan's Famous, the well-known hot dog chain; Kraft Foods, which manufactures Oscar Mayer wieners; Sara Lee; ConAgra, which makes Hebrew National franks; and Marathon, manufacturer of Sabrett, “the frankfurter New Yorker's [sic] relish.”

The plaintiffs envision a warning label similar to the one currently on cigarette packages. The wording would look something like: “Warning: Consuming hot dogs and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer.”

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~Sandy G.

House Passes Food Safety Bill

Measure to improve FDA wins on second try

By Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.com

The House of Representatives voted 283-142 to pass the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (aka H.R. 2749), designed to improve the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) ability to police food suppliers and processors for signs of foodborne illnesses and unsafe practices.

The bill was originally introduced on June 29, but failed on a vote of 280-150 as the rules required a two-thirds majority for passage. The bill was reintroduced today only requiring a simple majority to pass the chamber.

229 Democrats and 54 Republicans voted to pass the bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called "strong legislation that will protect lives and prevent illness."

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~Sandy G.

"Cash For Clunkers" Suspended

Program ran out of funding after four days

By Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.com

The much-vaunted "Car Allowances Rebate System" (CARS)--more popularly known as "Cash For Clunkers"--where buyers could trade in their old gas-guzzler for a $3,500 or $4,500 voucher towards a more eco-friendly car, has been suspended after less than a week and roughly 250,000 cars sold.

The program certified 22,782 car trades since Monday, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but a survey of automobile dealers found that there was a backlog of 25,000 trades still awaiting clearance. The agency also rejected many claims due to illegible or incomplete paperwork, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Many auto dealers around the country were reporting brisk business as a result of the program, while others were claiming the procedure for approval was too difficult and was leaving them unable to make transactions.

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~Sandy G.

Apple: Jailbreaking Could Knock Out Transmission Towers

By JEREMY KIRK of IDG News Service\London Bureau

Apple has told the U.S. Copyright Office that modifying the iPhone's operating system could crash a mobile phone network's transmission towers or allow people to avoid paying for phone calls.

The claims are Apple's contribution to the Copyright Office's regular review of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that forbids the circumvention of copy control mechanisms.

Apple says that modification of the phone's software, a process known as jailbreaking, could lead to major network disruptions. Jailbreaking gets around the copyright control features that prohibit, for example, the installation of applications unapproved by Apple.

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~Sandy G.

Extra '&' in Microsoft development code gave hackers IE exploit

Company's security development expert confirms reports by outside researchers

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

Microsoft yesterday confirmed that a single superfluous character in its own development code is responsible for the bug that has let hackers exploit Internet Explorer (IE) since early July.

A pair of German researchers who analyzed a vulnerability in a Microsoft-made ActiveX control came to the same conclusion three weeks ago.

"The bug is simply a typo," Michael Howard, a principal security program manager in Microsoft's security engineering and communications group, said in a post Tuesday to the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) blog. Howard, who is probably best known for co-authoring Writing Secure Code, went on to say that the typo -- an errant "&" character -- is the "core issue" in the MSVidCtl ActiveX control.

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~Sandy G.

Researcher reveals massive 'professional thieving' botnet

A nasty piece of malware that's infected up to a million PCs is stealing financial information from consumers and businesses at an alarming rate, a noted botnet researcher said today.

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

A ferocious piece of malware that's infected up to a million PCs is stealing a "tremendous" amount of financial information from consumers and businesses that log on to their bank, stock broker, credit card, insurance, job hunting and favorite e-shopping sites, a noted botnet researcher said today.

"Clampi is the most professional thieving pieces of malware I've ever seen," said Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks' counter-threat unit. "We know of few others that are this sophisticated and wide-ranging. It's having a real impact on users."

The Clampi Trojan horse has infected anywhere between 100,000 and 1 million Windows PCs, said Stewart -- "We don't have a good way of counting at this point," he acknowledged -- and targets the user credentials of 4,500 Web sites.

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~Sandy G.

False-positive swindles grow rapidly online

Fake anti-virus programs set to rule the roost

By John E. Dunn, Techworld

The phenomenon of fake anti-virus (AV) software is growing at such a pace that it could grow to eclipse all other types of malicious software, one security company has suggested.

The Business of Rogueware, the latest threat report from PandaLabs, the research wing of Spanish AV company Panda Security, contains the usual round of statistics on malware growth found in all such vendor reports, but it is the section on rogue anti-virus that should make PC users sit up and pay attention.

In the first quarter of 2009, the company detected more bogus anti-virus files or variants than in the whole of 2008, 111,000 in total. Unconfirmed second quarter figures show that this rose during the second quarter to 374,000. This rise accords with similar statistics published last week by rival Sophos, which said that it was now detecting 15 new bogus AV sites a day, compared to five a day in the latter half of 2008.

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~Sandy G.

Recalls

Nutracoastal Recalls S-DROL, STEAM Dietary Supplements

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2005-2007 Hyundai Accent, Azera, Elantra, Sonata, Tucson Recalled

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Subaru Recalls 2005-2006 Baja

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~Sandy G.

Microsoft rushes patches to fix 'big deal' programming flaw

Developers who used the buggy code 'library' must redo software, update customers

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

As promised, Microsoft Corp. today patched six vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Visual Studio with the first "out-of-cycle" update since last October, when it plugged a hole that the Conficker worm later used to run rampant.

Microsoft has been working on the Visual Studio bugs, and coordinating with third-party developers who may have crafted vulnerable software using Visual Studio, since early 2008.

As some had speculated, Microsoft rushed the patches to users this week to preempt a presentation slated for tomorrow at Black Hat by several security researchers. The researchers plan to demonstrate a way for attackers to bypass the "kill-bit" defenses that Microsoft frequently deploys as a stop-gap measure for fixing bugs.

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~Sandy G.

Recalls

Enviro-Flo Fuel Containers Recalled

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Baby Bjorn Balance, Air Bouncer Chairs Recalled

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Reflections of Magic Mirrors Recalled

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~Sandy G.

Microsoft rushes clutch patch for 'deep' bug in Windows, third-party apps

Researchers say move may be tied to this week's Black Hat security conference

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

The emergency patches Microsoft plans to rush out this week will fix a flaw that runs through several critical components of Windows and an unknown number of third-party applications, according to a pair of security researchers.

On Tuesday, Microsoft will slap a permanent patch on a video streaming ActiveX control used by Internet Explorer (IE), addressing a vulnerability that it has known about, but not fixed, for more than a year. Two weeks ago, Microsoft issued a "kill bit" update that, rather than address the underlying problem, disabled the ActiveX control to stymie attacks that were already in progress. It's also slated a fix for Visual Studio, Microsoft's popular development platform.

Although Microsoft has not spelled out exactly what it will patch with the two "out-of-band" updates -- the term for security updates released outside the company's once-a-month schedule -- earlier this month researchers pointed fingers at the Active Template Library (ATL), a code "library" used not only by Microsoft's own developers, but also by third-party software programmers to access some features within Windows.

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~Sandy G.

The 10 most damaging botnets in the U.S.

America's 10 most wanted botnets ranked by size and strength

By Ellen Messmer, Network World

Botnet attacks are increasing, as cybercrime gangs use compromised computers to send spam, steal personal data, perpetrate click fraud and clobber Web sites in denial-of-service attacks. Here's a list of America's 10 most wanted botnets, based on an estimate by security firm Damballa of botnet size and activity in the United States.


No. 1: Zeus


3.6 million compromised U.S. computers. The Zeus Trojan uses key-logging techniques to steal sensitive data such as user names, passwords, account numbers and credit card numbers. It injects fake HTML forms into online banking login pages to steal user data.

No. 2: Koobface


2.9 million compromised U.S. computers. This malware spreads via social networking sites MySpace and Facebook with faked messages or comments from "friends." When a user is enticed into clicking on a provided link to view a video, the user is prompted to obtain a necessary update, like a codec -- but it's really malware that can take control over the computer.

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~Sandy G.

New Rogues

From ConsumerAffairs.com

Every day we add hundreds of new consumer complaints and comments to our site. And each day sees the addition of companies and products that haven't previously appeared in our Rogues Gallery. Here are today's newcomers:

eFindoutthetruth.com

eLuxurymall.com

Calcoast Financial Services

Green Credit Solutions

Express Oil & Lube

We want to hear from you. If you've had a problem -- or a pleasant experience -- with a company, product or service, please let us know, using our secure complaint form.


~Sandy G.

Swine flu could hit up to 40 percent in US

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA – In a disturbing new projection, health officials say up to 40 percent of Americans could get swine flu this year and next and several hundred thousand could die without a successful vaccine campaign and other measures.

The estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are roughly twice the number of those who catch flu in a normal season and add greater weight to hurried efforts to get a new vaccine ready for the fall flu season.

Swine flu has already hit the United States harder than any other nation, but it has struck something of a glancing blow that's more surprising than devastating. The virus has killed about 300 Americans and experts believe it has sickened more than 1 million, comparable to a seasonal flu with the weird ability to keep spreading in the summer.

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~Sandy G.

Adobe Warns Of Critical Flash Vulnerability

Echoing security warnings issued earlier this year, Adobe is warning users of Flash Player, Reader, and Acrobat to exercise caution online due to a zero-day vulnerability that's being actively exploited.

By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek

Adobe on Wednesday issued a security advisory about a critical zero-day vulnerability that affects its Flash Player, Reader, and Acrobat software across all major operating systems.

"A critical vulnerability exists in the current versions of Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) for Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems," the company said. "This vulnerability (CVE-2009-1862) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system."

US-CERT, which operates in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, warned users to disable Flash in Adobe Reader 9 on Windows computers and either to disable Flash Player or to enable only known safe Flash content.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

New Rogues

From ConsumerAffairs.com

Every day we add hundreds of new consumer complaints and comments to our site. And each day sees the addition of companies and products that haven't previously appeared in our Rogues Gallery. Here are today's newcomers:

Samsung Printers

Adorama Camera

Elizabeth Cotton

Cruises.com

Mexico Paradise Getaways

We want to hear from you. If you've had a problem -- or a pleasant experience -- with a company, product or service, please let us know, using our secure complaint form.


~Sandy G.

Recalls

Foamorder.com Recalls Natural Sense Foam Blocks

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Sevylor Tow Behinds Recalled

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LeapFrog Recalls Electronic Plush Toys

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~Sandy G.

Experts Warn About Electronic Cigarettes

E-cigarettes could increase nicotine addiction

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

A laboratory analysis of electronic cigarette samples has found that they contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Electronic cigarettes, also called "e-cigarettes," are battery-operated devices that generally contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavor and other chemicals. The electronic cigarette turns nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.

These products are marketed and sold to young people and are readily available online and in shopping malls. Additionally, they do not contain any health warnings comparable to FDA-approved nicotine replacement products or conventional cigarettes. They are also available in different flavors, such as chocolate and mint, which may appeal to young people.

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~Sandy G.

Erin Andrews 'Nude Video' May Install Computer Virus

Searching online for that nude video of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews? Better not, say computer security specialists.

Crafty hackers have created a fake CNN Web page housing what purports to be the video of the glamorous sports reporter undressing — but when you click on it, you're asked to download a specialized video player, which is full of digital nastiness to infect your computer.

Macintosh users are not immune to this one — in fact, the hacker software detects what kind of computer you're using and dumps an even nastier Trojan horse onto Macs than it does PCs.

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~Sandy G.

Report: Federal Documents Detail iPods Overheating, Catching Fire

Apple iPods have burned users or caught fire more than a dozen times, but neither the company nor the federal government has disclosed this to the public, according to a Seattle television station.

In a report posted on its Web site Tuesday, KIRO-TV says it used the Freedom of Information Act to get more than 800 pages of Consumer Product Safety Commission documents regarding iPod-related injuries and property damage.

Within the documents were details of at least 15 separate incidents where iPods overheated, sparked, smoked, caused burns or caught fire, KIRO-TV said.

The station became interested when Jamie Balderas of Arlington, Wash., was mystified by a penny-sized burn on her chest in Nov. 2008.

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~Sandy G.

New Rogues

From ConsumerAffairs.com

Every day we add hundreds of new consumer complaints and comments to our site. And each day sees the addition of companies and products that haven't previously appeared in our Rogues Gallery. Here are today's newcomers:

Beechnut

Chipotle

e-cig.com

Queens Family Dental, Astoria, Queens

Oak Tree Collections

We want to hear from you. If you've had a problem -- or a pleasant experience -- with a company, product or service, please let us know, using our secure complaint form.


~Sandy G.

Recalls

Stamina Recalls Elliptical Cross Trainers

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Polaris Recalls 2009 ATVs

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.



~Sandy G.

New Insights Gained Into Causes Of Anorexia

New technology examines whys and wherefores of eating disorder

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

New imaging technology provides insight into abnormalities in the brain circuitry of patients with anorexia that may contribute to the puzzling symptoms found in people with the eating disorder.

In a review paper published on line in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Walter Kaye, MD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues describe dysfunction in certain neural circuits of the brain which may help explain why people develop anorexia in the first place, and behaviors such as the relentless pursuit of dieting and weight loss.

"Currently, we don't have very effective means of treating people with anorexia," said Kaye. "Consequently, many patients with the disorder remain ill for years or eventually die from the disease, which has the highest death rate of any psychiatric disorder."

A better understanding of the underlying neurobiology -- how behavior is coded in the brain and contributes to anorexia -- is likely to result in more effective treatments, according to the researchers.

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~Sandy G.

Tablet Splitting: A Risky Practice

Consumers could run into a variety of problems

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

Some pharmacists have reported that patients have changed the way they take medications because of the downturn in the economy, according to a recent survey by the American Pharmacists Association. This includes skipping doses and splitting tablets in an effort to save money.

Regarding the practice of splitting tablets, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Medical Association, and other medical organizations advise against it unless it's specified in the drug's labeling.

Tablet splitting often involves buying higher strength tablets and then breaking the tablets in half or quarter doses as a way to lower drug costs. For instance, a 30 mg tablet may cost the same amount as the 15 mg tablet. So a patient may try to save money by buying the 30 mg tablets and splitting them all in half. This might seem like a smart money-saving strategy, but the practice can be risky.

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~Sandy G.

TripAdvisor warns of hotels posting fake reviews

By MELISSA TRUJILLO (AP)

BOSTON (AP) — The hotel review may sound too good — citing obscure details like the type of faucets — or perhaps one stands out as the only negative rating of an otherwise popular location.

The influential travel Web site TripAdvisor has been quietly posting disclaimers to warn customers of hotels writing fake reviews to improve their popularity rankings or hurt competitors.

The red disclaimers near the names of hotels show that TripAdvisor has a problem with fake reviews, travel bloggers and industry experts say. One blogger, Jeff Tucker, warned that without changes to restore credibility to the reviews the site is "going to come crumbling down behind them."

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~Sandy G.