Money world

FRANKLIN COUNTY • The wound left when Chrysler shuttered its plants in 2008 and 2009 hasn’t healed in nearby Franklin County, where residents for years relied on those paychecks.

The county has seen the sharpest rise in poverty in the metro region since the recession, according to recently released census figures. In 2006, a year before the recession officially began, 10.3 percent of residents lived below the poverty level. That figure hit 17 percent in 2010, the most recent statistics available.

When asked why the county was hit so hard, those who work with the poor unanimously cite the Chrysler closure in Fenton and its lingering effects on jobs.

“I think disproportionately we were hit harder than other areas, and that showed in our unemployment rate,” said Presiding County Commissioner John Griesheimer.

Many in the county haven’t found a way to replace good-paying jobs, and the county is about to be dealt another blow with ties to the auto industry.

Harman-Becker Automotive Systems plans to start shutting its plant in Washington, Mo., as soon as this month, leaving nearly 300 people without jobs, said Sandy Lucy, the city’s mayor.

Most of those jobs are in manufacturing. Many workers earn $40,000 to $60,000 a year assembling auto accessories such as car radios and navigation systems. The company supplied parts to the Chrysler plant.

Harman-Becker’s closure was announced more than a year ago but wasn’t supposed to begin until summer. The plant is now expected to be shuttered by spring.

The plant is an example of efforts to create county jobs. The state and city bent over backward to lure Harman-Becker to Washington in 2005, with incentives worth nearly $3 million.

The company has repaid the state almost $540,000 under a “clawback provision,” which allows the state to recover tax money from businesses that fail to meet economic commitments, according to the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

The company did not have to repay nearly $40,000 it received through the Missouri Quality Jobs program because it created and maintained jobs for three years. Harman-Becker did not respond to an email request for comment.

The pending closure worries Sandy Crider, executive director of Loving Hearts Outreach food pantry in Washington. She sees people coming to the pantry who lost jobs in the auto industry that paid $25 or $30 an hour with health benefits and retirement plans, and who have continued to struggle after those jobs disappeared.

“Now they’re working two part-time jobs for minimum wage and no health insurance,” Crider said. “They’re embarrassed because they can’t find jobs to bring them back to the point where they were in the past.”

A 58-year-old freelance Web developer standing in line recently at the Agape House food pantry in St. Clair said the loss of the plants has crippled the county and sent ripples beyond the auto industry. His own workload is down 40 percent from before the recession, said the man, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Bill, so his customers wouldn’t know his financial situation.

“I could see if you’re a bad person, you’re not going to hold a job,” he said. “But I see a lot of good, hardworking people who want a job and there’s nothing for them.”

Crider said more families are becoming homeless and must move in with other family members, also on fixed incomes.

“That’s what the homelessness looks like in Franklin County,” she said.

Ellen Dietrich, director of community relations of the Jefferson Franklin Community Action Corp., has seen the uptick in poverty, too.

Not long ago, a woman who used to donate came into the social service agency’s office. Instead of writing a check, she asked for help.

“People come in and give us résumés and say if we know of anyone hiring, please pass it along,” said Tammy Stowe, executive director of the Union Chamber of Commerce.

Franklin County government relies heavily on sales tax, but collections hit a low of $4.9 million in 2009. Since then, sales tax revenue has been on a slight upswing, said county Auditor Tammy Vemmer.

To help balance the budget the last couple of years, county employees have been required to clean their own offices to save on janitorial services. This year, unelected, full-time county employees will get a $700 boost in pay. They have not seen raises since 2008, Vemmer said.

Griesheimer, the presiding county commissioner, said the county had been able to avoid layoffs, unlike the private sector.

From January 2009 through March 2011, unemployment in Franklin County topped 10 percent for all but two months, and peaked at 13.4 percent in February 2010. The rate dipped to 8.8 percent in November, the most recent data available.

Christie Bean, of Gerald, has searched for a full-time job for more than five years. “I call the temp service every day,” she said.

Bean lost her assembly-line position when the Daisy BB bullet factory shut down in Salem, Mo. She’d like a permanent factory job but knows she can’t be picky.

“People who are getting jobs are holding onto them,” said Bean, 42.

Her husband sells scrap metal and fixes cars, but work has dried up. He has resorted to selling firewood door to door.

“He’s working hard and he’s not getting anywhere,” said Bean. He once had a good factory job, too, she said, but he lost it because of back problems.

Last month, Bean and her sister stopped at the Loving Hearts Outreach food pantry in Washington. Bean packed a basket of pasta, tuna, tomato soup, applesauce and red beans and rice into the back seat of her car and was grateful for it.

Other county residents are slowly digging their way out. Cody Sansom, 27, once made $20 an hour working construction jobs. When the demand for new houses dried up, so did work. He became homeless three years ago and moved to the Agape House shelter three months ago.

He recently landed a job as a cashier and pizza cook at a convenience store, where he earns minimum wage.

“It’s the lowest I’ve ever made,” said Sansom, who will start classes at East Central College in Union next month. “But it’s a job.”

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Federal health experts said Thursday that drug labeling for Yaz and other widely-used birth control pills should be updated to emphasize recent data suggesting a higher risk of blood clots with the drugs than older contraceptive pills.

The Food and Drug Administration’s panel of experts voted 21-5 Thursday that labeling on the popular drugs made by Bayer is inadequate and needs more information about the potential risk of blood clots in the legs and lungs.

Yaz, its predecessor Yasmin and related prescriptions use a manmade hormone called drospirenone, which mimics the naturally occurring female hormone progesterone. Approved in 2006, Yaz grew into the best-selling birth control pill in the U.S. by 2008, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in TV and magazine advertising that emphasized its ability to clear up acne and other hormonal side effects. But prescriptions have fallen more than 80 percent in the last two years amid safety concerns.

Panelists spent more than nine hours discussing often conflicting data on the blood clot risk of drospirenone-containing drugs compared with older medications. While the group disagreed on the quality of the evidence, the overwhelming majority said it should be clearly stated in the label, including the potentially fatal nature of blood clots.

“Clearly the wording is inadequate and incomplete,” said Dr. Richard Bockman of New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery. “Adverse events have to be made graphic so physicians and patients are aware of the consequences.”

In an earlier vote, panelists voted 15-11 that the pills remain a beneficial option for preventing pregnancy. The majority ruling amounts to a vote of confidence for keeping the drugs on the market, though well over a third of panelists voted against the drug’s overall benefit, citing numerous alternatives available.

“I can see no real group of patients that this drug benefited over existing alternatives,” said Mark Woods of New York University School of Medicine. “Without any clear benefit, and given the potentially catastrophic risk, I voted no.”

Two large studies conducted by German drugmaker Bayer have shown no difference in blood clots between patients taking the company’s drugs and patients taking older medications.

But since 2009, five large studies have suggested drospirenone-containing pills carry a slightly higher risk of blood clots than older birth control pills, though events in both groups are very rare. Even a slightly higher risk can be critical because blood clots can trigger heart attacks, strokes and blockages in lungs or blood vessels.

The most recent study by the FDA found women taking Yasmin had a 75 percent higher chance of suffering a blood clot than patients taking a combination of older drugs. The absolute risk of a blood clot is still far less than a fraction of a percent.

FDA scientists noted shortcomings with all the recent studies of Yaz and Yasmin, including missing information about patient weight and smoking status, which can increase the risk of blood clots. While not definitive, panelists said the information should be explained clearly in the labeling for physicians and patients no fax pay day loan.

“I think we can do a much better job than labels I have seen,” said Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, of the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Panelists said future studies must take into account patients’ lifestyle, race and family history to accurately capture blood clot risk.

With the slogan, “beyond birth control,” Bayer’s advertisements pitched Yaz to women in their 20s as drug with “lifestyle” benefits over older contraceptives. One advertisements featured young women singing the Twisted Sister anthem, “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” while popping balloons labeled “moodiness,” “bloating” and “acne.”

Within two years of its marketing approval, Yaz had grown into the best-selling birth control pill in the U.S. with peak sales of $781 million in 2009, according to data from IMS Health. But sales plummeted from one million per month to about 200,000 per month after the company added information about studies that found a heightened risk of blood clots. Additionally, Bayer was forced to run corrective advertisements after the FDA said the company’s marketing campaign overstated Yaz’s effectiveness in treating premenstrual mood disorders, and used distracting music and visuals to downplay the drug’s side effects.

Earlier in the day, panelists heard more than a half-dozen patients or their family members who blame Yaz or Yasmin for sometimes deadly blood clots.

Cindy Rippee spoke about her last conversation with her 20-year-old daughter Elizabeth Rippee, who died Christmas Eve 2008 when a blood clot traveled to her lung. Rippee said her daughter had been taking Yasmin for about two months, after taking another birth control pill, Tri-Sprintec, for a year previously.

“My daughter was a very smart young woman. If Elizabeth had been clearly told that Yasmin had more risk, maybe twice as much risk, as other pills she never would have switched to Yasmin and would be here today,” said Rippee, of Escondido, Calif.

Rippee is among 4,000 to 6,000 plaintiffs suing Bayer in personal injury lawsuits pending throughout the U.S. court system.

Yaz and other drospirenone-containing pills accounted for 16 percent of the hormonal contraceptives used in the U.S. last year, behind Warner Chilcott’s Loestren, Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho Tri-Cyclen and several other oral contraceptives.

The FDA has not set a timetable for any changes in Yaz’s labeling. For now, many doctors say they don’t expect to stop prescribing the drugs anytime soon. They point out that the risk of blood clots with any birth control pill is still far lower than that associated with pregnancy and birth, when surging hormone levels and reduced blood flow dramatically increase the chances of clotting.

Studies suggest that 10 in 10,000 women taking the newer birth control pills will experience a blood clot, compared with 20 in 10,000 women who are pregnant or have just given birth.

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Clayton-based Brown Shoe Co. said today that it will close a distribution center in Sun Prairie, Wis. next year to reduce excess capacity in its network as part of its ongoing portfolio realignment.

The facility will be closed in phases with the process beginning in January and ending in April, the company said.

“This decision was based on the result of changes in our industry and our continued portfolio realignment efforts, which are focused on shifting resources to our strategic consumer platforms,” Mike Kauffman, the company’s senior vice president of global supply chain management, said in a statement.

Brown Shoe chief executive Diane Sullivan launched a portfolio review when she took over the company earlier this year. As part of that process, the company also recently sold the basketball brand AND 1.

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From Europe to the Bank of Canada to Bay Street, investors can expect a week of announcements and forecasts that could provide a clearer picture of where the economy is headed.

Bank of Canada: On Tuesday, the central bank will give its latest decision on interest rates. Governor Mark Carney is expected to leave rates unchanged for the ninth consecutive time. But the statement that accompanies the decision will be closely scrutinized for discussion of where the world economy is headed, as well as inflation in Canada.

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ZOO NEWS: Susan Gallagher, the longtime voice and face of Ameren, is the new director of public relations for the St. Louis Zoo.

Gallagher, who was at Ameren for just over 20 years, retired as director of corporate communications. In that capacity she oversaw advertising, internal and external communications and media relations. Until 2009, Gallagher’s voice was the one you would hear on the radio telling you where Ameren was experiencing outages and what the outlook was for repair times.

Although her official retirement date is Oct. 31, Gallagher started work at the Zoo on Oct. 17. She describes the new job as a post-retirement position, and said she doesn’t want people thinking she’s making the same kind of salary she made at Ameren, because she’s not.

“This is a government job, and I understand that,” Gallagher added with a laugh. “It’s more of a mission for me. I’ve loved the Zoo since I was 10 years old. When I was a little girl in Arkansas my family would come up to St. Louis and we’d visit the Zoo. I have home movies of me at the Zoo. I’ve always loved it.”

Gallagher is replacing Janet Powell, who retired Sept. 30 after 38 years at the Zoo. Powell was the Zoo’s first public relations professional. Powell, of Kirkwood, plans to spend some time in retirement doing volunteer work in the soup kitchen at Centenary United Methodist Church in downtown St. Louis.

Gallagher is married to St. Louis Post-Dispatch business reporter Jim Gallagher. They have two grown daughters.

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Rupert Murdoch jousted with disgruntled shareholders Friday as the 80-year-old chairman and CEO of News Corp. defended his handling of a phone hacking scandal in Britain and deflected any notion that he plans to step down soon.

More than 100 protesters gathered outside the 20th Century Fox studio lot where News Corp. held its annual shareholders meeting. Inside, with his sons Lachlan and James seated before him in the front row, Murdoch parried allegations that he had poor oversight of the company, sometimes cutting off speakers to jab in an insult or dispute a fact.

Votes from the shareholders were still being counted in the afternoon but the company said a proposal from the Christian Brothers Investment Services to force the company’s chairman to be an independent director had failed. Few had held out any hope they could overcome Murdoch’s control of 40 percent of voting shares through a family trust, or the 7 percent stake Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had almost certainly cast in support of him.

“It was pretty perfunctory,” said Rev. Seamus Finn, who attended on behalf of the organization. “It was a nice meeting, but it didn’t offer much in terms of how they’re going to put this behind them.”

Questions and comments from shareholders focused on the phone-hacking scandal, which caused the company this summer to shutter the tabloid News of the World and drop its $12 billion bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting. Britons and other people worldwide were outraged to learn that a private investigator hired by the paper had hacked into the cellphone voicemail of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, potentially impeding a police investigation and giving false hope to her family. Dowler was later found to be murdered.

The phone hacking scandal has forced the resignation of two of London’s top police officers, ousted top executives such as Dow Jones & Co. CEO Les Hinton, and claimed the job of Prime Minister David Cameron’s former spin doctor, Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor. The company said in London on Friday that it had agreed to pay 2 million pounds ($3.2 million) to her family and 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to charities the family will choose.

Friday marked the first time Murdoch faced shareholders with small stakes in the company since the scandal broke in July.

Outside the studio lot, some demonstrators carried anti-Murdoch signs, including one that stated “Fire the Murdoch Mafia.” Another read, “Rich media equals poor democracy.” Some of the demonstrators were from an organization that has been staging rallies recently to demand good jobs.

Tom Watson, a member of Parliament with Britain’s Labour Party, flew to Los Angeles to make a new allegation about covert surveillance techniques by company employees.

Watson asked Murdoch if he was aware that a person who had left prison was hired by News Corp.’s British newspaper unit and hacked into the computer of a former army intelligence officer. He later said the incident happened around 2005 and that evidence of the computer hacking is with London’s Metropolitan Police. He said it could lead to the discovery of further victims of computer hacking. Watson said he has made the allegation before but it hasn’t been widely reported.

Watson represented nearly 1,700 non-voting shares for labor group AFL-CIO and got up twice and spoke for a few minutes during the 90-minute meeting. He is been a key driver of a 2 1/2-year probe into phone hacking and alleged police bribery at the company’s British newspaper unit.

Murdoch said he wasn’t aware of the allegation, and board director Viet Dinh said the company would look into it.

“I promise you absolutely that we will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this and put it right,” Murdoch said.

Watson evoked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on the phones of royal staff. He warned that this investigation could mean more problems ahead for the company.

“News Corp. is potentially facing a Mulcaire 2,” Watson said. “You haven’t told any of your investors about what is to come.”

Several shareholders took issue with a chart Murdoch put up showing the stock’s upbeat performance compared with most media peers since the beginning of the year and since the beginning of July. They said its performance over 10 years or more lagged its peers. Murdoch said the chart was to address criticism that the company had been hurt by the hacking scandal.

Edward Mason, secretary of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which advises the Church of England’s investments, began speaking about News Corp.’s shareholder returns when Murdoch butted in, saying “Your investments haven’t been that great, but go on.”

Stephen Mayne, a journalist and shareholder activist who once worked for News Corp.’s Australian newspapers, protested when Murdoch tried to bring the meeting to a close.

“Never before have you attempted to shut it down quite like this,” Mayne said.

Murdoch retorted: “You had a lady friend who shut you down in the past.”

Murdoch then got a laugh when he claimed he was being as open and fair as possible in letting critics air their concerns. “We even had Mr. Watson on Fox television this morning,” he said. “It’s called fair and balanced.”

Despite the circus-like atmosphere, several large shareholder groups quietly registered their concerns, including Todd Mattley, investment officer for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has some $225 billion in assets.

Mattley said CalPERS voted its 1.4 million voting shares in favor of the Christian Brothers’ proposal demanding an independent chairman. Although he said he knew the vote was “symbolic” he said later, “This is something we’ve said is a governance best practice.”

The company also came under renewed fire for its dual-class share system, which allows the Murdochs to control the company despite owning voting shares that account for less than 15 percent of the company’s total $44 billion market value.

Dinh said the last time the company voted on the dual-share structure was in 2007, when it passed with 77 percent of the votes.

News Corp.’s non-voting shares are down about 5 percent from when the scandal broke in early July, although they have been buoyed recently by a $5 billion share buyback plan that is about a third complete. On Friday, News Corp.’s stock rose 35 cents, or 2.1 percent, to close at $17.20.

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services had recommended voting out all existing board members, including Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan. Two other firms, Glass Lewis and Egan-Jones, recommend voting against the sons, among others.

Although the vote count hadn’t yet been tallied, the company said all of its director nominees had been elected.

Jay Eisenhofer, co-lead attorney in a shareholder lawsuit against News Corp. on charges of mishandling the affair, said on a conference call with Watson on Thursday that if even 20 percent of votes are cast against the re-election of Murdoch and his two sons, it would be a victory. That’s because that would be nearly half the 53 percent of votes unaffiliated with the family, he said.

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Alarmed by dismal economic conditions around the world, Toronto economist David Rosenberg asserts that “it’s time to start calling this for what it is: A modern day depression.”

Rosenberg made his reputation as a globally esteemed economist in New York as one of the top economic forecasters at Merrill Lynch & Co. When the Toronto money management firm Gluskin Sheff recruited Rosenberg home to his native Canada to continue his sage analysis from a slightly more Canadian perspective, I regarded this as a public service.

When someone of Rosenberg’s stature, even discounting his characteristic bearish sentiment, starts using the D-word, one can assume it will start popping up in the reports of securities analysts and macroeconomists worldwide.

There’s no question we’re in a world of hurt, from which Canada is not isolated.

Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, tried to slap down Peggy Nash, the NDP finance critic, in the Commons earlier this week by accusing her of “badmouthing” the economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had just downgraded its forecasts of Canadian GDP growth — from 2.8 per cent this year to only 2.1; and to a mere 1.9 per cent next year from an earlier forecast of 2.6 per cent.

If Nash is badmouthing the economy, then so are the IMF and David Rosenberg. Spitting on the messengers doesn’t change the fact that for the almost 1.4 million Canadians who are unemployed, we are indeed in a depression. And that about one million children in this country are living in poverty.

Our jobless rate, at 7.3 per cent, remains higher than the 6.0 per cent of October 2008, when the Great Recession began. And Canadian household debt is at near-record levels, as the income of middle- and working-class Canadians has continued its 30-year stagnation.

The U.S. and Europe, markets we rely on for export revenue, are in economic crisis.

Yet for all that, we are not in a depression, nor bound for one. Not remotely.

Put aside that the same IMF report that downgraded our GDP growth also forecast that it will continue to outpace our G7 peers over the next two years. And that Flaherty remains convinced GDP growth will be strong enough to enable him to keep his pledge to eradicate the last of the deficit accumulated in 2009-10 within three to four years.

The crippling North American jobless rate during the Depression ranged from 17 to 28 per cent. It was much higher in the hardest-hit regions like Appalachia and in “Dust Bowl” communities where family farms perished by the thousands.

Not until 1954 did the stock markets recover to their previous peak at the time of the Crash of ’29 — a span of a quarter century.

Today’s stock market, despite a slide over the summer, is trading at 2000 levels — not shabby given the epic global financial meltdown of 2008-09. U.S. banks failed by the thousands in the Depression. Today’s U.S. banks are sitting on about $2 trillion in idle reserves they refuse to lend until they’re absolutely certain that the meltdown will have no second act.

Similarly, corporate profits have soared, recovering to record levels in many industrial sectors. And perhaps most important is the absence of Depression-era trade wars, regarded by most economic historians as the chief cause of the Depression’s depth and duration.

There was, of course, no elaborate social safety net in place during the Depression, an unprecedented failure of cowboy capitalism that caused us to bring about those protections.

If you look beyond the admittedly discouraging conditions of the moment, you can see the European powers — chiefly all-important Germany — overcoming their reservations about reinventing the eurozone, to resolve that crisis and emerge with a far stronger common currency zone than they first conceived only 12 years ago.

And concern about the so far “jobless recovery” has lately pulled governments in Canada, the U.S. and Britain away from their sole obsession — as recently as a few months ago — with balancing the books.

The Depression was wholly different. In 1932, the Saturday Evening Post asked John Maynard Keynes, the great British economist, if the Depression had any precedent. “Yes,’ he replied. ‘It was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.”

It’s hubris to say a Depression could never happen again. Yet in these troubled times, we are dealing mostly with familiar problems, to which there are solutions that have reliably worked in the past.

We are, it’s true, in the grips of economic malaise. And the lack of urgency in curing us of it is a temptation to strong words. But since the crisis is more political than economic, better that we hold to account the powers that be and not go into rhetorical overdrive about the conditions themselves.

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General Motors announced it will invest $380 million and will add a second shift to its assembly plant in Wentzville as part of a new contract under negotiation with the United Auto Workers.

If union members vote to approve the four-year contract next week, it will mean 1,850 new jobs for the Wentzville assembly plant, said UAW Local 2250 chairman Mike Bullock, who is in Detroit for GM’s announcement today. Local 2250 represents hourly workers at the Wentzville plant.

The expansion will be for production of a 2014 mid-size pickup truck and and a full-size van, although GM did not release which models.

Bullock said if the contract is approved, the second shift will be added at the first part of 2012. Local 2250 will vote on the contract Monday and all votes are expected to be completed by next Tuesday.

“This will be a real shot in the arm for Wentzville and the St. Louis area,” Bullock said. “This really is a tribute to the men and women who work at the Wentzville assembly center and produce the best quality product at the best cost payday loan.”

Last week, Wentzville’s board of aldermen approved tax abatement for expansion of the Wentzville plant, which currently has a single shift and 1,300 employees.

GM makes Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans at the plant, about 40 miles west of St. Louis.

At GM’s press conference today, the Detroit-based automaker outlined investments at several other plants nationwide, including plans to invest $925 million at three Michigan factories that will create 900 jobs during the life of the contract. 

Including the Wentzville jobs, GM also outlined plans for investing in plants in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Fort Wayne, Ind., that will create or preserve a combined 3,700 jobs.

Check back on stltoday.com for updates to this story.  

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Consumers spent less on autos, clothing and furniture, leaving retail sales unchanged in August. The lack of growth in retail sales during a month of wild stock market fluctuations may increase recession fears.

The Commerce Department says retail sales showed no growth in August and demand in July was weaker than first thought.

Auto sales fell 0.3 percent. Sales at clothing stores declined 0.7 percent. Gasoline sales rose.

The flat reading in August was a surprise given reports from retailers that back-to-school shopping and auto sales were strong during the month compared to a year ago.

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Uncle Sam wants you to know more about what you’re eating.

The Food and Drug Administration wants to revise the nutrition facts label _ that breakdown of fats, salts, sugars and nutrients on packaging _ to give consumers more useful information and help fight the national obesity epidemic.

A proposal is in the works to change several parts of the label, including more accurate serving sizes, a greater emphasis on calories and a diminished role in the daily percent values for substances like fat, sodium and carbohydrates.

It’s the latest attempt to improve the way Americans view food and make choices about what they eat, and comes in the wake of major advances in nutrition regulations by the Obama administration.

Calorie counts are popping up on menus of chain restaurants across the country and the longstanding food pyramid was toppled this year by the U.S. government in favor of a plate that gives a picture of what a healthy daily diet looks like.

The struggle to redesign the labels on every box, can and carton has been in the works since 2003, and some of the changes could be proposed as soon as this year. FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor cautions not to expect a grand overhaul, but the revamped label does mark a shift to create a more useful nutritional snapshot of foods millions of Americans consume every day.

“There’s no question obesity is a central public health concern that the nutrition facts panel can play a role in. It’s obviously not a magic wand but it can be an informative tool,” said Taylor.

For two decades, the black and white label has offered a glance of nutritional information about what’s inside each package, including calories and grams of fats, cholesterol, protein and carbohydrates. Critics have complained it’s confusing and doesn’t offer a simpler way to make a choice about whether it’s good for them _ a judgment the industry wants to leave to consumers.

The proposed label is likely to produce several changes, said Taylor.

For starters, portion sizes should better reflect reality. The 2.5 servings listed on a 20-ounce soda bottle are typically slurped up by an individual in one sitting rather than split between a couple and their child. The same goes for a can of soup, where one serving is often listed as two-fifths of a can.

The FDA is also likely to find a way to emphasize calories, which many people rely on for weight control. Other items likely to disappear or change because they haven’t proven useful include calories from fat and the daily percent value numbers that show how much what an average diet should include.

Still, some wish the revisions would go further to list information about the amount of preservatives in a food and the degree of processing it has undergone. Health activists say such changes could help trim waistlines in America.

The food industry wouldn’t like to see many major changes. The current label is easily recognizable and adaptable to food packages of different sizes because it’s simple, said Regina Hildwine, director for science, policy, labeling and standards at the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Hildwine says her Washington-based group, which represents 300 top food, beverage companies _ including Nestle, General Mills Inc., and Coca-Cola Co. _ has provided extensive feedback to the FDA in the run-up to their proposed rule.

“I personally talk with FDA on a regular basis to share views and get information and sometimes they call me,” said Hildwine.

Advocates believe that the government and industry are too cozy, and that food companies are reluctant to overhaul food labels for fear of their profits being hurt paydayloans.

“It’s against the industry’s interest to help the consumer make better choices because then they’ll sell less food,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. “If the population is going to lose weight, it’s going to eat less food, so that means less business for them.”

There’s no shortage of ideas on how to improve the label. A recent contest by the University of California, Berkeley and Good Magazine yielded 60 colorful new designs.

A familiar theme popped up: red, yellow and green colors of a traffic light to indicate whether a food is good or bad. Another offered thumbs up and thumbs down on nutrients, depending on how much.

Manufacturers don’t think a stoplight system would work because most foods have a mix of nutrients and diets are not the same for everyone, Hildwine said.

“A color-coded scheme would not be as helpful to consumers as a fact-based approach,” she said.

The winning design was created by Renee Walker, whose label is topped by a large blocks of color above the nutrient listing, with each block representing an ingredient. For example, a jar of peanut butter would typically have a big box for peanuts, a smaller box for sugar, and other blocks for other ingredients.

The FDA has long avoided putting qualitative judgments about food on labels in favor of a simple listing of macronutrients, said contest judge and Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson.

Before the FDA first introduced the nutrition facts label in 1992, choosy Americans puzzled over a tiny printed listing of ingredients on packages to help determine what to feed their families.

As a result, Americans often relied on gut feelings to choose their diets at a time when the obesity epidemic was taking root.

Dr. David Kessler served as FDA commissioner during what he called a “battle royale” over the first label.

“Every change is a battle with the food industry,” said Kessler. “The food label that we implemented _ did it harm the food industry in any way? No. In fact, I’m sure they profited from it.”

Kessler, now a University of California, San Francisco professor and author, says the label is due for an update.

Like many experts, he’d like to see the new label address how much ingredients are processed.

A pie-chart could, for example, show how much of a jar of tomato sauce is from actual tomatoes, and how much is sugar, fats, sodium, water and whatever else may be in it.

Not that all food processing is bad. Skim milk and lean meat have been skimmed and trimmed of fat. Frozen vegetables are typically captured at peak ripeness without introduction of preservatives or sodium.

But many highly processed foods are stuffed with unpronounceable and nutritionally questionable substances. Add fat, sugar and salt, as processed foods so often do, Kessler said, and you have the perfect recipe for an American-style obesity epidemic.

“Twenty years ago, you would have maybe 20 to 30 chews per bite of food,” said Kessler. “Today, food is so highly processed and so stimulating it goes down in a wash (of saliva), like we’re eating adult baby food.”

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