Chris–this is just one more glaring example of the point I made about a government-forced monopoly of protection (vis-à-vis the Georgia peanut plant contamination story).

As your article shows:

“The issue is a vital one for business, which argues that meeting a federal standard should protect companies from huge awards from juries who might be swayed by the emotional facts of the cases before them.”

By only having one forced standard, this gives people a false sense of security about whatever service or product is supposed to have a safety approval due to this standard. Notice how the article says nothing about people suing the FDA for the less-than-stellar standard it seemed to have set.