What political capital? Federal prosecutors and the FDA have limited resources, of course, but I don't think this issue is preventing Congress or the White House of pursuing more pressing issues.
Well, political capital is a two-way street; it comes in debts and credits. Dealing with statistical non-issues like this only allows the DoJ (and perhaps, to a lesser extent, the FTC, which is also named in this article as part of the investigation) to claim to be doing something, while the real issues go unresolved.
The auto industry and the pharma industry, whose products kill huge numbers of kids, and who have both repeatedly taken actions in pursuit of profit without regard for the health and safety effects of those decisions, never seem to face any serious, lasting consequences.
The "rash of injuries and deaths" link in the article is a 404, but let's assume they are talking about the six deaths over the past two-and-a-half years. During that same time, 30,000 people have died from opiod overdose and 70,000 have died from MV traffic.
This is a distraction, and not even a convincing one.
Our public lawyers, lawmakers, regulators, and consumer advocates are spending their time and resources focused on really stupid things as a way not to have to talk about real life.
