Protecting What's Right

Kellogg Co.’s June recall of 28 million boxes of popular cereal brands has since been linked to hydrocarbons in the products’ packaging materials.  Hydrocarbons, a byproduct of oil, were found at elevated levels in the paraffin wax coating of the bags holding the cereal product.  Hydrocarbons, which have been the focus of scrutiny in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster, have to date not been evaluated by the government for human carcinogenicity.

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A six-member panel of federal investigators probing the cause of the BP oil spill got an earful last week, as witnesses testified to a litany of mechanical errors and safety shortcuts that may have played a role in the largest oil spill disaster in U.S. history.

Mike Williams, the Deepwater Horizon’s chief electronics technician, told investigators that the general safety alarm was not fully activated when the rig caught fire. It was typically set to “inhibited” to not wake up the crew in the middle of the night, and because the alarm did not sound during the April 20 disaster, workers were forced to warn those sleeping via the loudspeaker system, hampering evacuation efforts.

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A Louisiana rice farmer has won his case against Bayer CropScience for contaminating his rice crop with genetically-modified seed.

The case is the fifth in a row that Bayer has lost against American rice farmers who allege that the company negligently contaminated the U.S. rice crop with genetically-modified LibertyLink Seed.  As a result, the farmers were subjected to export restrictions, bans on some high-yield seeds, and a dramatic drop in prices.

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