The New York State Assembly is to amend its agriculture and markets law to require dietary and nutritional supplement manufacturers to label products as tested or untested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The New York State website maintains that some manufacturers choose to have their products tested by the FDA and others do not. It claims that the bill is intended to allow the consumer to know which products have been tested so that a more informed choice can be made when purchasing these various products. This bill deals only with the analysis of the product for purity; it does not...

In the latest issue of the McKinsey Quarterly consultants Betsy Bohlen and Kristi Weaver give the lowdown on the latest impact the deep recession is having on the consumer goods market. As we all know the recession affects spending on different categories of consumer goods in different ways. The McKinsey analysis compared consumer spending during some major downturn periods (over 1990-91 to 2001-02). They also compared these with average growth rates over the period 1984-2006. The evidence shows that during a downturn consumers do shift in purchasing behavior, however instead of making cuts across...