CONSUMER PROTECTION LABS

Like Berger's Pollution Lab (1974), this is an unquestioning description of the way things are supposed to work, with the FDA, state research agencies, Underwriters' Laboratory, Consumers Union, Calspan auto safety lab, J. C. Penney's, Lever Brothers and even drug companies all working-with presumably equal commitment--for the common goal of ensuring consumer protection. There's no hint that unsafe products ever get through their net, and nothing as controversial as Nader's brand of consumerism is mentioned; of course if what Berger gives us here were really the whole story, Nader would be irrelevant.