Cholesterol 101 factsheet – National Consumers League

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Cholesterol is a waxy substance made by the liver and supplied in our diet through animal products such as meats, poultry, fish and dairy. Cholesterol is needed (in the body) to insulate nerves, make cell membranes and produce certain hormones. However, too much cholesterol can be unhealthy. How do you know if you are at risk?

Why should you care?

Elevated cholesterol levels can significantly increase the risk of coronary events, such as heart attack and stroke.

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxy substance made by the liver and also supplied in the diet through animal products such as meats, poultry, fish and dairy products. Cholesterol is needed (in the body) to insulate nerves, make cell membranes and produce certain hormones. However, the body makes enough cholesterol, so any dietary cholesterol isn’t needed.

Why should you care?

Elevated cholesterol levels can significantly increase the risk of coronary events, such as heart attack and stroke. Excess cholesterol in the bloodstream can form plaque (a thick, hard deposit) in artery walls. The cholesterol or plaque build-up causes arteries to become thicker, harder and less flexible, slowing down and sometimes blocking blood flow to the heart. When blood flow is restricted, angina (chest pain) can result. When blood flow to the heart is severely impaired and a clot stops blood flow completely, a heart attack results.

Are you at risk?

An estimated 104.7 million American adults have high cholesterol (total blood cholesterol values of 200 mg/dL and higher) and about 37 million of these are consideredhigh risk, having levels of 240 or above.

A family history of high blood cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease. Other factors can contribute to a person’s risk of heart disease; these are called risk factors. Some risk factors such as age, family heredity, and gender (male), cannot be controlled. But others — such as smoking tobacco, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, and being overweight — can be controlled. Changes to these controllable risk factors are called “lifestyle modifications.”

Curbing cholesterol

For some, lifestyle modifications are enough to lower cholesterol to safer levels. For others with a hereditary pre-disposition, or who have a hard time making lifestyle adjustments, medical therapy is necessary.

Millions of people trying to control their cholesterol have turned to a class of drugs called statins, which have been used in the United States for more than 18 years to lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels. They have been shown to reduce risk for heart attack and stroke by up to a third, and generally have few immediate short-term side effects.

An OTC statin?

Two companies are working to bring statin therapies — in doses identical to lower strengths currently available by prescription — over-the-counter (OTC). These low-dose options would be recommended only for individuals with borderline-high cholesterol. These companies believe that an OTC statin will both increase public awareness about high cholesterol and encourage people with moderately-elevated cholesterol levels (who don’t often seek treatment) to do something about it.

NCL’s response

Recognizing that an OTC statin would have a large impact on consumers, in July 2004, NCL convened a small roundtable of consumer and patient advocates to discuss the issue, explore whether there is existing research on the subject, and discuss the possibility of further research by NCL. Following that meeting, NCL began working with Harris Interactive, an international survey research and polling firm, to conduct a study to explore consumers’ attitudes toward the possibility of an OTC statinoption. NCL commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a survey with an unrestricted educational grant from Johnson & Johnson Merck. NCL will continue its collaboration with other interested groups to provide relevant information to consumers about statin therapy options. For the results of the study and more information about this issue, visit www.nclnet.org.

What’s next?

A number of stakeholders are awaiting FDA evaluation of the OTC statin options. We anticipate that the FDA will consider the following issues with great scrutiny:

  • Would patients be interested in using an OTC statin if one were to be made available in the US?
  • Would patients have enough information about the OTC product, written in clear language on the package, to determine whether it would be appropriate for them?
  • Would patients have enough information about the OTC product, written in clear language on the package, to determine how to use it safely?
  • Would patients be likely/willing to undergo the regular cholesterol testing required to determine whether, and to what extent, the medication is working?
  • Would patients still talk with their doctors before and during treatment with an OTC statin?

Love Still In the Air? – National Consumers League

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Still munching on conversation hearts? Still enjoying just-beginning-to-droop fresh cut flowers or romantic meal leftovers? Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but for some unfortunate consumers, the sting of falling for a sweetheart swindler can last months – emotionally and financially!

It’s been more than a year since the fraud experts at the National Consumers League’s Fraud Center first identified a new trend in consumer scams: the Sweetheart or Friendship Swindle. While NCL’s Fraud Center only started tracking this type of scam in July of 2007, the Sweetheart Swindle scams gained enough momentum in the second half of that year to propel it to the 2007 top 10 scam list, which is annually released by NCL. According to complaints logged at www.fraud.org in 2007, the average sweetheart lost more than $3,038 to con artists disguised as friends or loved ones.

The trend seems to be holding up. In 2008, Friendship/Sweetheart swindles were the 10th most-reported type of scam to NCL’s Fraud Center, and – even worse – the average loss for such scams was nearly $12,500! Four times the previous year’s average loss. This average loss made friendship/sweetheart swindles the third-most costly type of scam, on average, for their victims.

Love stinks, doesn’t it? With so many of us turning to the Internet to find dates, friends, community activities, and more, it’s no wonder that scammers have cultivated a new way of taking money from their victims. Think you’ve found a new friend online but something’s fishy? Here are some warning signs that your new beau or gal may not be the real deal:

  • The person asks you for money, to cash a check or money order.
  • Your online sweetie says, “I love you” almost immediately.
  • The person claims to be a U.S. citizen who is abroad, and or claims to be well off, or a person of important status.
  • The person claims to be a contractor, and needs your help with a business deal.

The Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary wrote a great piece on the scam last year. Read it!

Happy Birthday, NAACP! – National Consumers League

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Just a few days ago, on February 12, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) celebrated its 100th anniversary. What a great time, during Black History Month – and within the first few weeks of our first African American President having taken office – to reflect on this organization’s achievements. The Baltimore Sun has a good feature on the org’s history, and National Public Radio has covered the anniversary as well, including with an interview with the new NAACP president and CEO, Benjamin Jealous.

According to its Web site, “the NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln.  Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth.”

Many readers may not be aware that the National Consumers League, which was founded just a few years before, in 1899, has some history in common with the NAACP. Back in the early days of NCL, which was founded by activists emerging from the suffrage, abolition, and settlement house movements, many activists for labor and women’s suffrage didn’t yet see the need to represent the interests of black Americans, who were often paid the lowest wages and worked in the dirtiest jobs. But the National Consumers League was different. NCL leadership argued that black workers were the most vulnerable and needed protections as much if not more as other workers. Throughout the League’s 109 years of activism and leadership in social justice, NCL’s leaders have had close ties to African Americans and the civil rights movement.NCL’s great first leader, Florence Kelley, was a strong supporter of early black civil rights. Although the early work of the League focused on the plight of urban workers in the American Northeast at a time when more African Americans lived in the South, Kelley had strong goals of racial equality. In her role in the suffrage movement, Kelley was critical of the National Woman’s Party for its friendly acceptance of white supremacist southern women members. A friend of W.E.B. Du Bois, Kelley was herself a founding member of the NAACP. At Kelley’s death, DuBois gave a eulogy for her, saying: “Save for Jane Addams, there is not another social worker in the United States who has either had her insight or her daring, so far as the American Negro is concerned.”

Hats off to the NAACP for its first 100 years of important contributions to American social justice and history. Three cheers from your friends at the National Consumers League!

Is common sense returning to Washington, DC? – National Consumers League

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by Reid Maki, NCL’s Director, Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

When Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act and President Obama signed it into law January 29, a nonsensical decision of the Supreme Court was effectively overturned. The court had ruled previously that a worker who wanted to sue his or her employer for illegally discriminating against them by paying them less wages based on their sex or race must do so in the first six months after the initial discrimination occurred.

In cases like that of Ledbetter, who worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber for 19 years, workers do not always know when they are being treated unfairly. Ledbetter only found out that she made less than all the other male supervisors because someone (in the months before her retirement) left her note telling her about the unequal pay. It wasn’t a trifling amount either: the lowest paid male supervisor made $550 more a month than she did. Over a nearly 20 year period, that kind of pay disparity adds up.

Ledbetter filed a complaint that year and was told by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she had grounds to sue. She won in a U.S. district court in 2003, but an appeal went to a higher court that ruled she had filed her cases years too late.

In a decision announced in early 2007, the Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 decision, agreed that workers who suffer from an employer’s illegal action have only six months from the time the discrimination began to initiate legal recourse—whether or not they knew about the illegal action! As writer Richard Thompson Ford noted in Slate, “Ledbetter basically grandfathers in longtime pay discrimination.”

Thankfully, Congress set about reversing the decision—as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had called for in her dissenting opinion. The National Consumers League endorsed these efforts in a letter to Congress last August.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, allowing workers to bring a lawsuit within six months of any paycheck—not just the first—that discriminates against them was the first law enacted under the Obama presidency.

President Obama signaled the importance of balancing corporate power and employee rights by inviting Ledbetter to be one of 16 guests to accompany him on his train ride into Washington before he took office. He also danced with her on the night of his inauguration!

“Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of. In fact, I will never see a cent from my case,” said Ledbetter at the signing. “But with the president’s signature today, I have an even richer reward. I know that my daughter and granddaughters … will have a better deal. That’s what makes this fight worth fighting.”

SCHIP: ‘A Great First Step’ – National Consumers League

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by Mimi Johnson, NCL Health Policy Associate

President Obama recently signed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) into law, making what he calls ‘a down payment on [his] promise to cover every American.’ This reauthorization means that 11 million low-income children will now have health insurance, covering four million more children than before. SCHIP works to cover children in families who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to purchase private insurance.

This issue is very important to the National Consumers League. For over 100 years we have worked to improve the lives of children, from improving child labor laws to ensuring medication safety. The League strongly believes that all citizens have a right to adequate and affordable health care.

While SCHIP has been around since 1997, the reauthorization brings some exciting changes. For the first time, coverage will extend to children and pregnant women who are legal immigrants. Another revision includes a 62-cent increase in the cigarette tax, which will hopefully discourage kids from starting to smoke in addition to encouraging adults to quit. Still other preventive measures in the new SCHIP include programs to promote healthy lifestyles and help reduce childhood obesity.

We applaud Congress and the Obama Administration for acting swiftly to protect America’s children. Still, nearly nine million children remain uninsured in this country, a number that is most certainly rising. Almost two-thirds of Americans are insured through their employer. And with the recent announcement that nearly 600,000 jobs were lost in January alone, the number of uninsured is rising at an alarming rate.

Reauthorizing and expanding SCHIP is a great first step towards an improved health system, but we need to work quickly towards broader reform that ensures we can all receive the quality care we need.

Props to Congress for Move to Delay DTV Transition Date – National Consumers League

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The National Consumers League has issued kudos to the U.S. House of Representatives for voting to delay the official date of the federal transition from analog to digital television.

You’ve probably heard of the impending transition, which is set for Feb. 17. Consumer advocates are concerned, however, that there are still many consumers out there – an estimated 6.5 million! – who are unprepared for the switch. Those rabbit-ear-relying TV watchers would be in for a rude awakening when the analog signals stop airing. If they haven’t yet subscribed to cable or satellite, swapped their TV for one with a digital signal, or purchased a converter box, they may be baffled when their sets go blank later this month. Unless, that is, the delay is made official, and advocates, government, and others are given more time to reach those millions of consumers with the info they need to make the switch.

Sally Greenberg, NCL‘s Executive Director, had this to say about the move by the House:

“The decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a four-month delay in the shutdown of analog TV signals is a victory for the estimated 6.5 million U.S. households that remain unprepared for the DTV transition. Consumers in these unprepared households are disproportionately elderly, low-income, rural, and minority. The delay will allow time for governmental, private, and non-profit educational efforts to have greater effect and for more converter box coupons to be sent to consumers currently on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s waiting list. The delay will also help avoid the nightmare scenario of consumers, particularly older ones, climbing their roofs in February to adjust TV antennas due to the transition. We urge President Obama to sign the bill to law as soon as possible.”

Statement of support from the National Consumers League on House passage of the DTV Delay Act – National Consumers League

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February 4, 2009

Contact: 202-835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) today has issued the following statement regarding the passage in the U.S. House of Representatives of S. 352, “The DTV Delay Act.” This statement is attributable to Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League:

“The decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a four-month delay in the shutdown of analog TV signals is a victory for the estimated 6.5 million U.S. households that remain unprepared for the DTV transition. Consumers in these unprepared households are disproportionately elderly, low-income, rural, and minority. The delay will allow time for governmental, private, and non-profit educational efforts to have greater effect and for more converter box coupons to be sent to consumers currently on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s waiting list. The delay will also help avoid the nightmare scenario of consumers, particularly older ones, climbing their roofs in February to adjust TV antennas due to the transition. We urge President Obama to sign the bill to law as soon as possible.”

While this legislation moves the official transition deadline to June 12, it does not prohibit broadcasters from turning off their analog signals before that date. NCL calls on broadcasters to honor the new deadline extension and maintain their analog signals until then to allow more consumers to prepare for the transition.

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About the National Consumers League

Founded in 1899, the National Consumers League is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Mahalo, Hawai’i LifeSmarts! – National Consumers League

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Our LifeSmarts program in Hawai’i is making headlines, as their state competition is just a few days away. As recently reported in the Honolulu Advertiser, young savvy consumers will battle it out this weekend for a spot at nationals. The defending state champs from Kea’au High School will defend their title Saturday at the state Capitol auditorium.

In Hawai’i, LifeSmarts is coordinated by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and enjoys local support from partners including the Better Business Bureau Foundation, the Hawai’i Credit Union League, and the state Department of Education.

Good luck, guys! We’ll see the winners in St. Louis!

Shared history: NCL and working families – National Consumers League

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Did you know NCL began as an organization of women devoted to workers’ rights?

NCL is America’s pioneer consumer organization, founded in 1899 on the principle of consumer responsibility for the welfare of workers. NCL began as an organization of women devoted to workers’ rights.

NCL drafted the nation’s first minimum wage law in 1912 to protect women and children, the most severely exploited workers. NCL was among the first to champion the cause of child labor, campaigning for laws to protect against children working for long hours and pauper’s wages. NCL fought for the rights of African American workers in the early 20th century, including Black women, who were the lowest paid workers of all.

NCL’s early leaders, including Eleanor Roosevelt and consumer and labor rights advocate Esther Peterson, fought for national health insurance and a 40-hour work week.

The fight continues

Today, NCL is the only organization whose mission links consumer issues and fair labor standards. NCL supports the Employee Free Choice Act, making a connection between consumer rights and labor rights on Capitol Hill. NCL joins with the Labor Movement in supporting comprehensive healthcare reform. NCL is a world leader in the fight against child labor. It co-chairs, convenes, and staffs the domestic Child Labor Coalition and serves on the board of the International Cocoa Initiative.

In the 1990s, NCL helped establish the Global March Against Child Labor, the first global civil movement advocating for free, quality, basic education for all children and a world free from child labor. The League played a key role in the 1999 founding of the Fair Labor Association, addressing conditions for workers in the apparel industry. Comprising more than 200 colleges and universities, businesses, and NGOs, the FLA has helped to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers in developing countries.

 

Contaminated peanut butter? Is nothing sacred? – National Consumers League

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by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The all American sandwich, peanut butter and jelly, defiled by the potentially deadly Salmonella pathogen?

More than 500 people in 43 states have been sickened, and eight have died, after eating crackers and other products made with peanut butter from  a plant owned by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). More than 100 children under the age of 5 are among those who have been sickened.

The good news for consumers is that none of PCA’s products are sold directly to consumers. 
The bad news is that apparently PCA distributed potentially contaminated products to more than 100 companies for use as an ingredient in hundreds of different products, such as cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream.
 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated an inspection of PCA’s Blakely plant on January 9 shortly after learning that the firm might be linked to the ongoing Salmonella outbreak that was making people sick in states across the country.  But what should outrage consumers is that isn’t the first time the PCA has been implicated  – far from it. According to the New York Times, over the last two years  there were 12 instances in which the company’s own tests of its product found contamination by salmonella. In each case, the report states, “after the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped in interstate commerce.”

It is illegal for a company to continue testing a product until it gets a clean test, said Michael Taylor, a food safety expert at George Washington University.

The FDA’s report describes a plant that was poorly constructed, with gaps and holes in the walls and flaking rust that could get into food products. “There were open gaps observed” near air-conditioner intakes that were as large as a half-inch by two and one-half feet long, the report said.  Previous inspections of the plant by the Georgia State Agriculture Department found dirty surfaces, grease residue and dirt buildup throughout the plant. They also found rust residue that could flake into food, gaps in warehouse doors large enough for rodents to enter, and numerous other problems.

Ingesting foods containing the Salmonella virus can be deadly in the very young, the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.

The plant sells its peanut paste to some of the nation’s largest food manufacturers, including Kellogg and McKee Foods. As a result of the contamination, more than 100 products have been recalled, mostly cookies and crackers.

In a press conference Tuesday, Michael Rogers, director of the division of field investigations at the FDA, said that the company’s tests showing salmonella contamination should have led the company to take actions to eliminate the contamination. “It’s significant, because at the point at which salmonella was identified, it shouldn’t be there, based on the manufacturing process that’s designed to mitigate salmonella, actually eliminate it,” Mr. Rogers said.

But the firm took no steps to clean its plant after the test results alerted the company to the contamination, inspection team found problems with the plant’s routine cleaning procedures as well.

The plant also stored pallets of peanut butter next to supplies of peanuts, the inspection report says. Finished products should be stored far from raw materials to reduce the chances of re-contamination of the finished goods, according to federal rules.

What is wrong with this picture? This Georgia plant is a clearly a serial violator– the feds found numerous violations but so did the state of Georgia. Why wasn’t the plant closed down after the Georgia State Inspection? Restaurants that are dirty and violate municipal rules are routinely closed down until they fix safety violations. What is the point of federal and state safety procedures if a company is permitted to flout them and send contaminated products into the marketplace? and shouldn’t we have tough criminal penalties for a company that knowingly ships contaminated products?

Certainly, Congress will be demanding answers, but consumers should demand them as well. Our food safety regime is broken. President Obama needs to appoint a tough new FDA Commissioner immediately. But the job of the FDA is overwhelming; FDA regulates food, drugs, and medical devices. We agree with our friends at the Center for Science in the Public Interest – our food safety system needs to be overhauled.

We need legislation to bring the food safety program at the FDA and Department of Agriculture and all the other federal agencies that regulate food into the 21st century. Representative Rosa DeLauro has introduced legislation to create a new Food Safety Administration at Health and Human Services.  That approach would bring the program elements together and put an expert in charge. We ask Congress and the Obama Administration to pass this legislation quickly, and begin to overhaul our food safety regime and make it work for consumers.