Government

Misleading Test Results Are Further Complicated by Deceptive Marketing and Other Questionable Practices

Highlights of GAO-10-847T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives

In 2006, GAO investigated companies selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests and testified that these companies made medically unproven disease predictions. Although new companies have since been touted as being more reputable — Time named one company’s test 2008’s “invention of the year” —  experts remain concerned that the test results mislead consumers. GAO was asked to investigate DTC genetic tests currently on the market and the advertising methods used to sell these tests.

Read more »

(We constructed this Women of Note item when Elizabeth Warren was first named as head of the TARP oversight panel. Now President Obama is considering her as head of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, a new government entity,created by the financial reform law.)

Named as the head of the Congressional Panel established to oversee the $700 billion fund (Troubled Asset Relief Program, now referred to as TARP), assigned to help distribute monies authorized to aid the economy, Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard's Business School.

Perhaps what strikes the reader first are Ms. Warren's research interests, especially the last:

• Empirical and Policy Work in Bankruptcy and Commercial Law
• Financially Distressed Companies
• Women, the Elderly, and the Working Poor in Bankruptcy

Read more »

This past week the Senate Finance Committee held hearings about two important issues,  Choosing to Work During Retirement and the Impact on Social Security and The Future of Individual Tax Rates: Effects on Economic Growth and Distribution.

Here is some of the testimony from the 'Work During Retirement issue from Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration:

Scenario 1: Increase Work at Age 62 and Older by 10 Percent
... labor force participation has declined generally for men and has risen for women since 1950 and 1970. Under the Trustees intermediate assumptions, participation rates are projected to rise in the future at age 65 and older, on an age adjusted basis, to levels closer to those experienced back in 1970 for males and to double the rates from 1970 for females.

Read more »

Stateline.org, a Pew Center on the States Project, has constructed a guide to what the state ballots will be presenting to voters in 2010:

"Voters in Missouri will get the nation's first chance to weigh in on the federal health care law when they take up a measure August 3 that takes aim at the new mandate that everyone have insurance. Nationwide, more than 120 questions are slated to appear on statewide ballots this fall on topics ranging from property taxes to abortion. And there will be more: A number of states have yet to reach their filing deadlines. Below is a sampling of measures that have already qualified for the ballot. " For instance:

Read more »