April 23, 2025: Chicago, IL – The 2025 LifeSmarts National Championship will be held in Chicago from April 24-27. Located at the Chicago Marriott Downtown, Magnificent Mile, the competition will feature 46 state teams vying for the national title. LifeSmarts, a program of the National Consumers League, continues to provide students with the tools and knowledge needed to navigate today’s complex, global marketplace.
April 22, 2025: Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) is raising serious concerns about the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) budget by more than 30%. This drastic move would gut essential public health protections, weaken food safety, and threaten scientific progress.
April 22, 2025: Washington, DC – According to recent reports, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will end the collection of certain injury data vital for CPSC standards, recalls, and education campaigns.
April 18, 2025: Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) applauds U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson for her efforts to temporarily block the Trump administration’s efforts to cut 1,500 employees from the CFPB.
April 18, 2025: Washington, DC – According to a leaked document, the Trump Administration is finalizing plans to eliminate the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and absorb the agency’s functions within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
April 18, 2025: This week, the National Consumers League this week strongly recommended expanding respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines for high-risk adults 50-59 years old to protect against a condition that can become severe for infants and older adults. NCL was selected to make remarks before the critically important Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ( ACIP) Additionally, NCL encouraged the Committee to continue its work in support of increasing vaccine confidence and transparency for the public. On April 11, 2025, the National Consumers League submitted comments in response to a request for comments at the April 15 and 16 in Atlanta, Georgia.
April 17, 2025: Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) is calling on the Trump Administration to immediately stop the sweeping layoffs announced at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Reports that the Administration plans to lay off 1,500 positions across the CFPB’s enforcement and supervision divisions will drastically reduce the agency’s ability to fulfill its core mission of protecting consumers.
April 16, 2025: For many, April brings the joy of Easter with children awakening to an Easter Basket filled with treats or searching in the grass for eggs and chocolate. But while children here delight in eating a chocolate bunny, 1.56 million children are working in West African cocoa fields, harvesting the very cocoa that makes our Easter candy possible. [^1] How does a consumer know if the chocolate they are eating involves child labor?
April 14, 2025: Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) is outraged by the recent actions of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which has reportedly infiltrated the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These actions pose a direct and immediate threat to consumers and parents nationwide. By interfering with the FTC’s ability to protect the public—especially children’s data—from harmful privacy violations, fraud, and anti-competitive practices, DOGE has crossed the line.
April 10, 2025: Washington, DC – Green America and the Child Labor Coalition launched a new campaign aimed at eradicating child labor and labor violations in the food production industry, with a focus on the four top U.S. meat processing companies. The campaign will focus on child labor and labor violations at Perdue Farms, JBS, Tyson and Cargill, including launching a consumer petition and engaging a network of allied grassroots groups on the ground across the country.
The work of the National Consumers League is making a difference in people’s lives across the country. Meet some of the consumers touched by our programs.
Read about NCL’s impact
Paige, 55, a Nashville wife and mother of two, answered an employment ad for secret shoppers. Before sending payment to the scammers, she reached out to NCL.
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A grease fire flared up in Decklan’s kitchen. As his family scrambled and panicked, fearing that the whole house might erupt in flames, Decklan remained calm. He hurried over to the pantry, grabbed some baking soda, and dumped it on the fire quickly extinguishing the blaze.
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Cincinnati resident Charles, 45, lost his computer business — and health insurance— during a time of economic downturn. A diabetic, Charles was now unable to afford his medication. He stopped taking it which made him seriously ill and put his life at risk.
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Jeremy is a fast-food worker who has been employed at a number of Chipotle restaurants in New York City. When he was just 20 years old, he took part in an NCL research project that revealed that management practices within the fast food chain were putting workers—and food safety for customers—at risk.
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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to hardship for all Americans, it is clear that people of color have been disproportionately burdened. Across the health care continuum, addressing this disparity has become part of the broader conversation about the history of systemic racism and the underlying social determinants of health that negatively affect the mental, physical, and economic health of individuals and entire communities.
The pandemic has underscored persistent health disparities, and there is growing recognition that representation in research and clinical trials can have a profound impact on health outcomes. A lack of representation from racially and ethnically diverse groups in research and clinical trials have typically led to gaps in data, missing the opportunity to assess the full impact of various treatments and drugs across a range of populations. The collection and use of real-world research and data to inform the potential use, risks, and benefits of medical products and treatments can ultimately lead to better health outcomes, particularly for those who have been underrepresented in the past.
Existing efforts to improve inclusion
Efforts to expand diversity and representation in medical research are underway in Congress. Policymakers are encouraging the incorporation of Real World Evidence (RWE) in drug development through the recent Cures 2.0 draft legislation released by Reps. Diana Degette (D-CO-1) and Fred Upton (D-MI-6). While the status quo limits us from effectively reaching underserved populations, the proposed legislation would allow studies that include RWE for some drugs after they have been approved. At the heart of this issue is a growing appreciation that the same therapy can affect different populations in different ways, which is why Cures 2.0 supports collecting data that more accurately reflects the unique experiences and needs of patients across diverse populations.
Recognizing the potential for RWE in maternal health
The lack of representative research in the field of maternal health is undeniable, and its implications are staggering. The dismal state of maternal care in the United States reflects how our health care system has failed women of color, including by not adequately studying treatment options to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality. The need for RWE is clear when you consider the persistent disparities in health outcomes that plague minority communities.
Preterm birth and its disproportionate impact on women of color is a stark illustration of the need to make progress on representative research in maternal health. Preterm birth is the second-largest contributor to infant death in America today. Despite the tremendous physical, emotional, and financial toll that preterm birth continues to take on our country — disproportionately so on women and families of color — not enough therapeutic tools currently exist to prevent it.
Today, “17P,” the only FDA-approved treatment to help reduce the likelihood of spontaneous, recurrent preterm birth in the United States is at-risk of being withdrawn from the market in all its forms, including the branded product and five generic versions. Unfortunately there is conflicting evidence from two different clinical trials, one representative of a diverse U.S. population and another studied in a largely white population in Europe. It’s not a straightforward comparison. If 17P is withdrawn, the women most affected by preterm birth, predominantly women of color, would be left without an FDA-approved treatment option.
The FDA is considering the path forward, including additional data collection through leveraging RWE from past patient use. The success of the first (approval) trial for 17P in the impacted communities signals the importance of RWE. Continued access to 17P is, at its core, a matter of health equity. Black women must not yet again be left vulnerable to a system that historically has overlooked them.
