Protecting Consumers Updates

Mystery donors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2012 elections via nonprofits and shell corporations, despite widespread public support for disclosure and decades of legal precedent supporting the public’s right to know the sources of election-related spending. A new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Center for Media and Democracy found that contributions from phony for-profit corporations accounted for nearly 17 percent of all business donations to Super PACs.

It took just 32 billionaires and corporations giving Super PACs an average of $9.9 million apiece to match every single dollar given by small donors to Romney and Obama in the 2012 election cycle, according to Billion-Dollar Democracy, a new report by the Arizona PIRG Education Fund and Demos. Those small donations amounted to over $313 million from more than 3.7 million individuals.

After a one-year delay, the FDA released two vital food safety rules that will help protect American consumers from unsafe and contaminated food. The proposed rules will improve the safety of produce and establish better preventative controls and practices in food manufacturing.

Dangerous or toxic toys can still be found on America’s store shelves, according to the State PIRG’s 27th annual Trouble in Toyland report.