Products

The federal government has issued a warning to Americans not to buy any of the Chinese herbal products being sold as "legal highs," because they can cause heart attacks, seizures, psychotic episodes or even death.The Food and Drug Administration has focused on widely available products with names like Herbal Ecstacy, Ultimate XPhoria and Cloud 9 because they contain ephedra, or ma huang. Used for centuries in China, it is the herbal form of the central nervous system stimulant ephedrine, which can act on the body like methamphetamine, commonly known as speed.

WASHINGTON -- Over-the-counter smoking cessation products do not work and will be banned from the marketplace after Dec. 1, the Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday.The prohibition will affect all pills, tablets, lozenges, and chewing gum tablets that do not require a prescription and that contain ingredients not proved useful in helping smokers quit. The products are sold under such brand names as Cigarrest, Bantron, Tabmint, Nikoban, Smoke-X and others.The action does not affect the nicotine patch or nicotine gum, which are available only by prescription.

After decades of subscribing to the rule of "Buyer beware," policymakers in Washington and business leaders are favoring increased regulation of consumer products, and that's a good thing. The shift was signaled last week when the House passed a bill with bipartisan support that would provide strong new protections for purchasers of children's toys. It would ban some chemical ingredients from products that may be causing dangerous health effects, require third-party testing of some children's products and bolster the Consumer Product Safety Commission's authority to inspect manufacturers' labs.

A diverse group of small biomedical companies have created a consortium to help them raise money, expand their markets and collaborate on products.Biomedical Entrepreneur Associates, a Washington-based management corporation with a staff of two, will run the consortium, which is designed to help bring companies with varied agendas together, said Edmund Jaskiewicz, chairman of the group.The consortium of 11 companies from the United States and Canada was formed, Mr. Jaskiewicz explained, after small companies with interesting products found it difficult to get even $300,000 to $500,000 in financing.

Extending its reach further beyond the telecommunications equipment industry, Lucent Technologies Inc. announced a new set of products yesterday that transmit digital information using Internet technology rather than older network systems.The announcement pushed Lucent's share price up $2.125 to $71.875 on the New York Stock Exchange.One of the main trends in the high-technology industry is the convergence of voice and data networks. Companies, including Lucent and Northern Telecom of Canada which have thrived as builders of traditional telephone systems, are expanding into the torrid business of data networking.

U.S. steel interests reacted angrily yesterday to yet another round of products that are being exempted from the steel tariffs that the Bush administration imposed in March. The Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced yesterday another 178 products that will not be subject to the tariffs, which range from 8 percent to 30 percent. That brings the number of excluded products to 727 and covers 3.2 million metric tons of steel - nearly 25 percent of the 13.1 million metric tons of steel included in President Bush's March tariff order.

CHICAGO - Baxter International Inc., noting a worsening competitive squeeze on profits at a key blood-products group, disclosed plans yesterday to eliminate 2,500 jobs - about 5 percent of the Deerfield, Ill., company's work force - and warned investors that full-year earnings will fall short of its earlier guidance. The medical products giant said costs associated with the retrenchment, which includes the pending closure of more than a score of plasma-collection facilities and a company-wide work force streamlining, will burden second-quarter net earnings with a hefty $200 million after-tax charge.

The last time Jon Hyman led a company, he helped turn the golf industry on its head, introducing plastic cleats to replace metal spikes. Now, he's planning a revolution for a similarly staid business: concrete. "This is not a very exciting industry, but we've been able to do things differently," said Hyman, who is chief executive officer of Baltimore-based CeraTech Inc. CeraTech has a technology that seeks to replace the way that cement has been made for nearly 200 years, since English inventor Joseph Aspdin mixed chalk and clay and heated it in a kiln to produce what is now widely known as Portland cement.

NEW YORK - With its eye on The Learning Channel's popular Trading Spaces reality show, ABC television approached Sears, Roebuck and Co. in the summer of 2003 with an enticing proposal. Rather than just inserting a few products into the new show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC was eager to follow an emerging model for advertising known as "branded entertainment." "This was a case of working with an advertiser, understanding their needs, and then seeing whether that fit with a program we were looking to do," said Dan Longest, ABC's senior vice president for integrated marketing and promotion.

Naming food products after memorable disasters would see to be a bad marketing move. Consider: Chernobyl hot sauce or Titanic iceberg lettuce.But for Pompeian Inc., the strategy has worked out famously for its olive oil. Now it hopes to have the same success with artichokes, white asparagus and other yet-to-be-determined products.Nationally known for the extra-virgin olive oil that flows through its Baltimore bottling operation, the Spanish-owned company is planning a move into other markets and has recently completed a $3 million expansion of its plant.