Food and Drug Administration

Take a Chill Pill

Forbidden Fruit

Diane DeGette Testifies on a Hot Topic

Milking It: Strawberry Chex

A Bitter Pill

Vitamin crusaders burned out of a right-wing radio station find the official version of events tough to swallow.

CU study says decline in depression diagnoses is depressing

Robert J. Valuck. Picked up the Archives of General Psychiatry issue for June yet? I haven't, because I had no idea the publication existed until a few minutes ago. But WebMD reports that the edition includes an interesting study by University of Colorado academics like Robert J. Valuck and Anne L ... More >>

The Bite

Still game to try venison despite disease scares.

The Bite

Area shoppers give in to the power of cheese.

Check, Please!

Readers give our food critic something to chew on.

The Beatdown

Nobody in particular knows the trouble these guys have seen.

Drunk of the Week

Hops Grillhouse and Brewery

Wahoo’s Fish Taco

High-octane margs fuel enlightenment.

Chasing the Green Fairy

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

Throwing Fitz

The move to Fitzsimons was supposed to send CU's Health Sciences Center sailing into the 21st century. So why are so many doctors jumping ship?

Love's Recipe

Allie’s Cabin offers a meal that arouses several appetites.

The Strange Case of Dr. Schmidt

He worked wonders with chronic-pain patients. So why was the university so eager to get rid of him?

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It's been banned for nearly a hundred years, but the Green Muse still inspires Denver bootleggers.

The Big Queasy

The junk-food guinea pigs of Grand Junction have had some strange gut reactions to olestra.

Out for Blood

It's the most precious fluid on Earth -- and the most feared. Will your next transfusion be a stranger's blood or a solution called Optro?

MAKING BRAIN WAVES

A BOULDER BIOTECH FIRM BATTLES THE FDA BUREAUCRACY.

MOUTHING OFF

A BOULDER BIOTECH FIRM BATTLES THE FDA BUREAUCRACY.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST

A BOULDER BIOTECH FIRM BATTLES THE FDA BUREAUCRACY.

THE HEP-C GENERATION

A BOULDER BIOTECH FIRM BATTLES THE FDA BUREAUCRACY.

MOUTHING OFF

A BOULDER BIOTECH FIRM BATTLES THE FDA BUREAUCRACY.

Can cannabis cure swine flu?

Take a hit of this, H1N1 sufferers.​Does cannabis contain the magic ingredient that will keep swine flu from sweeping the planet? A Colorado Springs company has (yes, you knew it was coming) high hopes. Cannabis Science, Inc. is announcing today that it's "made key progress with mapping out i ... More >>

Colorado's share of Pfizer drug-marketing settlement a drop in the bucket

John Suthers.​Colorado is set to receive more than $3.5 million from drug leviathan Pfizer in relation to two separate settlements. According to the office of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, the largest of the two deals is related to allegations that the company "improperly marketed fo ... More >>

Water 2 Wine uncorks an alternative gift idea

Water 2 Wine features its low-sulfite wine​ The holidays are enough to drive anyone to drink -- so this year, why not help everyone out by giving wine? For $250, Water 2 Wine will help you craft a case of 28 bottles with custom labels -- which breaks down to about $9 a bottle. "Most of the ... More >>

Marijuana advocate Mason Tvert launches petition targeting drug czar

SAFER's Mason Tvert thinks drug czar Gil Kerlikowske has some splainin' to do.​

Total Recall: Slim Fast is the latest yank from the FDA

Slim-Fast. Now with harmful micro-organisms​As an ongoing public service, we would like to draw your attention to another FDA food recall. (As we reported here last week, the FDA recently recalled nearly 111,000 pounds of frozen beef steak fritter.) Why? Because any opportunity to explore the ... More >>

Total recall: popcorn, popcorn and more popcorn from Snax in Pax

​The FDA recalls thousands of products each year, presumably so that no one gets numb to all the hysteria. But when it's popcorn that's been pulled from the shelves, especially during the time of year when popcorn balls and popcorn strands and big bins of popcorn, caramel corn and cheese corn ... More >>

One last kernel of the Colorado "Popcorn lung" case

Beware all ye who enter here...​It could be the asbestos of our generation: "Popcorn Lung" now has a website dedicated to victims of this dreaded "disease" (in truth, it's a law firm's site encouraging potential litigation) -- and the phenomenon began in our own back yard. Although the medic ... More >>

Denver's Skychefs could be grounded

Depending on the airline, this might be your best bet​As if flying could get any more miserable, there's one more complication in the "friendly skies." Late last month, the FDA sent a warning letter to LSG Skychefs, LLC, indicating that Skychefs' FDA inspection status had been changed from " ... More >>

Mile Highs and Lows: Fresh Baked Dispensary

​As Colorado's medical-marijuana industry grows, marijuana dispensaries of all types and sizes are proliferating around the state. Some resemble swanky bars or sterile dentist offices; others feel like a dope dealer's college dorm room. To help keep them all straight, Westword will be offering ... More >>

Rage drummer Brad Wilk signs bottles of Olade this weekend

​"I was on tour with U2 in 1997, and I woke up one morning and I had lost my eyesight by like 50 percent," remembers Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk. "I just felt horrible -- like I had a hangover, but I hadn't been drinking." When he finished the tour, Wilk went to the doctor and ... More >>

Hold the sprouts! A new produce recall includes Colorado

A Flickr photo​Another day, another nationwide recall. This time around the blame is being placed on a usual suspect: alfalfa sprouts. Three different name brands of sprouts have been deemed responsible for a recent salmonella outbreak that, at last count, had stricken at least one Colorado ... More >>

No excuses: My genes made me do it

​Suzanne C. O'Neill, an assistant professor with the Cancer Control Program at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, has co-authored a study whose finding is the non-surprising: We'll use any excuse we can. Her research found that the least healthy people surveyed exc ... More >>

Would you like a roach or rodent with your meal, sir? FDA finds those and more in airline catering company kitchens

​Jesus. It's not horrible enough cruising at altitude with a full two inches of legroom, a middle seater with flatulence and seat belts slimed with Jell-O. Now FDA inspectors are unearthing everything from fruit flies and ants to live roaches and dead rodents in the country's airline catering ... More >>

Marijuana-book giveaway: Mason Tvert offers DARE instructors tome saying weed's SAFER

Mason Tvert.​Mason Tvert, the main man behind SAFER, lives to promote the theory that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol -- and if he can hype his book Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? at the same time, that's even better. These goals come together in Tvert's la ... More >>

Lufthansa testing high-altitude tastes to improve airline meals

​There's bad food, and then there's airline food, barely edible foil-wrapped meals that command a category of terrible taste all to themselves. Unsurprisingly, a couple of airlines out there are realizing that if they improve the quality of their meals a bit, especially in first class, they'l ... More >>

Corn syrup by any other name....still tastes as icky sweet: Our top five

​With the advent of processed byproducts, the cheap way to sweeten products has been alchemy: turning American corn into a sugar substitute. But "high fructose corn syrup" has acquired a very bad reputation in the last few years, and now the Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the U.S. Fo ... More >>

Under FDA scrutiny, caffeinated malt beverage Four Loko will go caffeine-free

​For a long, long time, we had to take our uppers and downers the old-fashioned way, popping an Adderall with a beer, or drinking a vodka-Red Bull, the nightclub cocktail of champions. The big alcohol producers wanted in on the fun, so several created caffeinated malt beverages, sold in cans ... More >>

Quick, react: Four Loko banned by the FDA

Bye bye, Four Loko​As expected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- the cop-calling Debbie Downer in a room full of people who just want to party -- decided yesterday that caffeinated alcoholic beverages are unsafe and gave a handful of companies, including Phusion Products, which makes F ... More >>

Life in the post-Four Loko world: alcoholic whipped cream, like Whipped Lightning, becomes the next subject of FDA scrutiny

​It's only been a few weeks since we bid adieu to the Four Loko and friends, those caffeinated malt beverages that caused an uproar after a couple of idiots young people became severely intoxicated (which has never happened with any other alcohol in the history of mankind). Now, clearly deter ... More >>

U.S. Senate makes it one step closer to eating safe food

http://www.flickr.com/photos/plumdearly/3048306829/​ Your food got a lot safer yesterday -- theoretically, at least. By a convincing 73 to 25 vote, the Senate passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which give the FDA more power to mandate recalls and do more frequent inspections.

Melatonin-laced brownies and cookies launch market for relaxation edibles

​Having trouble sleeping? Rather than popping an Ambien, why not have a melatonin-laced brownie?

Goat's milk ice cream, rhubarb compote and Upslope Brown Ale will cool you down

Philip Poston​When I moved to Boulder almost six years ago, I was a virgin to the organic, local and crunchy West Coast vibe that wafts over the Rocky Mountains. Being from the much less breezy South, I grew up eating very well, but was not at all familiar with the pleasure of doing so conscio ... More >>

THC driving limit: Task Force member says no recommendation wouldn't stop new bill

​Yesterday, the Drug Policy Task Force met to consider THC driving limits. The DUID-marijuana working group studying the subject couldn't agree on a proposal last week, and Task Force member Senator Pat Steadman thinks its inability to do so may prevent THC-driving legislation from being bless ... More >>

Marijuana PTSD study roadblock example of feds' schizophrenia, says Brian Vicente

​Last year, Colorado's health department refused to approve medical marijuana for treating post-traumatic stress disorder -- but one branch of the federal government appeared ready to test pot's PTSD effectiveness. Now, however, the plan's on hold, much to the chagrin of Brian Vicente, who's l ... More >>

Diana DeGette and Henry Waxman request listeria outbreak investigation

​U.S. Representative Diana DeGette didn't just fall off the turnip truck. She's been concerned about food safety throughout her tenure in Congress, and yesterday, she and California Representative Henry Waxman sent a letter demanding a full investigation into the listeria contamination that's ... More >>