uUniversity Med School Returns $1M Gift To Coca-Colar

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  Last year, Coca-Cola donated $1 million to the University of Colorado School of Medicine, with the money intended to fund a pro-soda advocacy group called the Global Energy Balance Network. After being criticized for accepting this money to push Coca-Cola’s business agenda, the university has now decided to return the funds.

  “The University of Colorado School of Medicine has notified the Coca-Cola Co. that the University is returning contributions made by the company to support the establishment and operation of the Global Energy Balance Network,” reads a statement released over the weekend.

  The Global Energy Balance Network’s co-founder and president is a professor at Colorado. The organization emphasized the importance of exercise and healthy eating in the fight against obesity, but what drew so much criticism for GEBN was its attempt to downplay any connection between sugary drinks and obesity.

  The organization’s ethics and motives were questioned because of videos like the one below, featuring the GEBN vice president blaming the media for linking obesity to high-calorie foods, declaring that there “virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause.”

  The Colorado med school is maintaining that the core idea of GEBN is a valid one, but that the money is being returned to Coca-Cola because “the funding source has distracted attention from its worthwhile goal.”

  Coca-Cola tells the NY Times that it will take the returned funds and donate them to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

  “While the network continues to support a vigorous scientific discussion of the contributions of dietary and physical activity behaviors to the obesity epidemic, it has become evident that the original vision for G.E.B.N. has not been realized,” reads a statement from the beverage biggie.

  A physician at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been very critical of GEBN, supports the school’s decision and hopes others follow suit, but notes that Colorado, “probably returned the money out of embarrassment.”

  The med school is just the latest organization to end a lucrative relationship with the sugary cash source. The American Academy of Pediatrics used $3 million from Coca-Cola to launch healthychildren.org, while the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics received $1.7 million from the company. Both groups have severed financial ties with Coke.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uNissan Joins List Of Automakers Dumping Takata’s Ammonium Nitrate Airbagsr

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  Takata lost yet another customer over the weekend, as Nissan announced it would no longer use ammonium nitrate filled airbags produced by the Japanese parts maker. 

  Reuters reports that Nissan joined a growing list of carmakers to ditch Takata and its shrapnel-shooting airbags after the parts maker was fined $70 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report airbag defects.

  “We have decided to no longer use (Takata’s) inflators containing ammonium nitrate in airbags for future models,” Nissan said in a statement. “We will continue to put our customers’ safety first and work to replace the inflators in vehicles under recall as quickly as possible.”

  Nissan previously announced that it would repeat inspections of vehicles equipped with Takata airbags that had initially been cleared of defects after a passenger was injured during a collision last week, Reuters reports.

  Last Wednesday, Honda – which made up about 10% of the part maker’s global sales – said it would discontinue using Takata’s airbag inflators in any new models under development and accused the supplier of manipulating test data.

  The carmaker said in a statement that it was “deeply troubled” by evidence that suggested Takata “misrepresented and manipulated test data for certain airbag inflators.”

  Following Honda’s move, other automakers, including Fuji and Mitsubishi, announced they were considering dropping the part’s maker.

  On Friday, Toyota announced it would also stop using Takata’s ammonium nitrate airbags in its vehicles, noting that it was placing ““top priority on ensuring the safety and confidence of our customers.”

  Carmakers’ decision to drop Takata’s products come just a day after the parts maker was fined $70 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its failure to properly alert regulators to airbag issues.

  The company has agreed to phase out the use of ammonium nitrate in its inflators by 2018 and faces an additional $130 million fine if it doesn’t comply with NHTSA orders or if new violations are found.

  Nissan joins automakers dropping Takata air bag inflators [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uRead The Fine Print: Allstate Safe Driving Bonus Checks Aren’t Available In All Statesr

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• Sometimes, it’s annoying to watch television and see ads for businesses or products that don’t exist in your area, like the Sonic ads on cable that taunted us here in the Northeast for years. In a series of Allstate ads that air nationwide, the insurer talks about a biannual bonus check that customers who don’t get in accidents receive. “Where’s my check?” asked one Allstate customer who hasn’t had an accident in decades. Where, indeed?

  Here’s one of those ads, if you haven’t caught any of them:

  The curious safe driver contacted Allstate, and they explained to her that customers in California can’t sign up for the program, because it isn’t available there. That’s also the case in North Carolina, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Yet ads that specifically promote this program, and not just the Allstate brand, air nationwide.

  The customer turned to CBS Sacramento’s consumer reporter, Kurtis Ming, for some clarity. The TV station asked Allstate why, exactly, the program isn’t available in California.

  “It’s a business decision,” a spokesperson said. Okay. It might have something to do with insurance regulations in those four states, too: while the Allstate spokesperson wouldn’t confirm that this is why the program isn’t available, the state Department of Insurance explained to the station that rebates on insurance are specifically outlawed in California.

  Why air the ad nationwide when the thing it advertises isn’t available in the most populous and most car-enamored state in the country? Nationwide ad buys are the reason everyone sees the commercials, which is why there’s a disclaimer. It appears only as fine white text for a few seconds during the commercial.

  

  “Most people don’t stop and pause to see what the fine print is,” points out a local consumer attorney. They’ll learn the truth when they ask their Allstate agent where their bonus checks are, but wouldn’t it save everyone a lot of time to throw an audible disclaimer in there?

  Call Kurtis: I’m a Good Driver. Where’s My Allstate Bonus Check? [CBS Sacramento]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uJos. A. Bank Tries And Fails To Wean Customers Off Deep Discountsr

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  Once your customers are used to receiving discounts, it’s really hard to wean them off. Just ask JCPenney, a company that conducted a spectacular nationwide failed experiment in misunderstanding one’s own customer base. This week, Men’s Wearhouse shared the news that their attempt to change the habits of Jos. A. Bank shoppers isn’t going so well: sales are way down.

  When customers have been trained to come in and stock up on suits only when there’s a buy one, get three free sale, ending those sales entirely will hurt traffic. To be precise, the company says that comparable-store sales dropped 14.6% at Bank stores, while the same figure increased slightly at parent brand Men’s Wearhouse. They expect even more of a decrease in the next quarter, anticipating that sales will fall 20 to 25%.

  However, the bushels of suits are not coming back out. The brand is standing firm. In the press release summarizing their quarterly report, the company predicts that sales will remain down while “customers adapt to the shift in the promotional strategy.” That’s an inherently sunny outlook, since it presumes that those customers are coming back.

  Men’s Wearhouse CEO Doug Ewert explained in a statement that the company had anticipated that sales would fall, but had not anticipated that they would fall quite this much. “Despite these results, we continue to believe that transitioning away from the unsustainable promotional strategy we inherited from Jos. A. Bank and accelerating our new promotional strategy is the right thing to do for the long-term success of the Jos. A. Bank business,” he said. That strategy includes a rewards program and not marking their suits way up so they can be massively discounted.

  Jos. A. Bank sales plunge, sending Men’s Wearhouse shares down 45% [Baltimore Business Journal]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uBig Pharma Companies Also Being Questioned About Drug Pricesr

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  Earlier this week, we told you how a Senate committee was investigating huge price hikes on a handful of niche-market prescription drugs. The companies involved in those probes are generally newer, smaller operations — but it looks like two much bigger names in the pharmaceuticals industry are also being asked about the prices of their drugs.

  In a new quarterly filing [PDF] with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Merck discloses that it has received a civil investigative demand from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, seeking information “relating to the Company’s contracting and pricing of Dulera Inhalation Aerosol with certain pharmacy benefit managers and Medicare Part D plans.”

  Dumera is Merck’s name brand for an inhaled asthma medication that’s a combination of formoterol and mometasone. According to the Wall Street Journal, year-over-year sales for this drug were up nearly 17% for the nine months ended Sept. 30.

  The journal also notes that another big pharma biggie, Eli Lilly, recently disclosed [PDF] that the same U.S. Attorney’s office is conducting an inquiry concerning Eli Lilly’s “treatment of certain distribution service agreements with wholesalers when calculating and reporting Average Manufacturer Prices in connection with the Medicaid drug rebate program.”

  Under that program, drug manufacturers with products covered by the government-run low-income insurance plan agree to pay quarterly rebates that offset the overall cost of prescription drugs under Medicaid. The value of these rebates is calculated based on the average price a manufacturer charges to wholesalers.

  Eli Lilly contends it did nothing wrong in calculating its rebates.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uTruck Crash Strews Cranberries Across Bridge On Cape Codr

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  I really enjoy cranberry sauce, but I have some serious doubts about how they go about making the stuff on Cape Cod. Well, that, or a truck accident that spilled cranberries across a bridge there early this morning was an unfortunate accident where no people were killed but one was seriously injured, and many berries were sacrificed.

  A head-on crash has closed the Sagamore Bridge https://t.co/atPzGYe30n http://pic.twitter.com/MgEQsM6MEl

  — Boston.com (@BostonDotCom) November 6, 2015

  Around 6:30 this morning, there was a head-on collision between a truck full of cranberries and another vehicle on the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod. Two people were injured, presumably the drivers of both vehicles: one sustained serious injuries and was transported to a hospital in Rhode Island. The other had minor injuries and declined going to a hospital.

  Cranberries are everywhere after the truck carry them was in a crash on Sagamore Bridge. https://t.co/uWS8vwyJUT http://pic.twitter.com/H94oBdDaP6

  — MassLive Food (@masslivefood) November 6, 2015

  The state police announced two hours later that the fruit had been cleared and the bridge re-opened. From 6:30 to 8:30, the spill came just in time to disrupt rush hour, yet was too early for Thanksgiving.

  All lanes now open on Sagamore Bridge. We thank motorists for their patience.

  — Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) November 6, 2015

  Food jokes aside, we hope that both injured people make a swift recovery, and that they aren’t tired of terrible cranberry jokes and puns yet. Or ever.

  Photos: Truck carrying cranberries involved in crash on Cape Cod’s Sagamore Bridge [MassLive]
  Cranberry spill snarls traffic on Cape Cod bridge [Associated Press]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uSupreme Court To Hear Another Challenge To Affordable Care Act Contraception Rulesr

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  Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its fourth challenge to the five-year-old Affordable Care Act — and the second challenge involving the law’s requirement that employers provide insurance that includes coverage for female workers who choose to use birth control.

  In creating the ACA, the Obama administration in an exception to the contraceptive mandate for strictly religious organizations like churches, but not for church-affiliated non-profit institutions like schools or hospitals.

  Then in the wake of the 2014 Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, in which SCOTUS ruled that there needed to be a way to exempt the owners of closely held private companies who oppose the use of birth control, the administration created a process through which the federal government would take over responsibility for paying for the contraceptive coverage.

  The idea was that, by having the government pay for any birth control, the employers were not in any way responsible for financing something to which they object. But eight different religious non-profit organizations — including Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma, Geneva College in Pennsylvania, and the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged — challenged this compromise in federal court, claiming, among other things, that the arrangement still made them complicit in their employees’ use of birth control.

  In the Little Sisters case, the issue also involves whether or

  Seven of these challenges failed to convince U.S. appeals courts, but in September the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in Missouri sided with the non-profit groups.

  This morning, SCOTUS agreed [PDF] to hear at least part of each of the remaining seven challenges, which will be consolidated when the court hears arguments in March 2016.

  The groups allege that even the compromise violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which states that “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except… if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

  As ScotusBlog notes, the Little Sisters case will also look at the question of whether or not the group — a Catholic religious order of nuns that also runs homes for the elderly — is required to obey the contraceptive mandate even though its insurer would not take part because it has an exempt “church plan.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist