Our My name is Steve Grove and along with my co-host David Feldman David I trust you had a happy Valentine's Day Oh it was fantastic dining dancing it was very romantic with a special someone yes make. Of that suddenly went very sad. Well and we also have the man of the hour Ralph Nader allow Ralph a low oh going to be one of my favorite programs listeners oh yes it is when. We assume that most of your listeners out there are intelligent consumers that's why you listen OS for instance and I bet a lot of you subscribe to Consumer Reports and if you don't we hope you do after this it's whom report the organization to give you all the information you need on the products you are buying and that's case we've got a treat for you if you've ever wondered how Consumer Reports arrives at the ratings it does and various products we have invited on the show Mr Leah McCormick was their vice president of research testing and insights later on the show that'll be the 1st part we'll check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter Rossum O'Connor and whatever remaining time we have we'll devote to answering your listener questions but 1st let's get right to it let's take a peek behind the curtain at Consumer Reports with our 1st guest David Lee McCormick is vice president of research testing and insights at Consumer Reports an independent on profit organization that works with consumers to champion the principles of choice and voice safety privacy sustainability transparency and value in the marketplace Mr McCormick is responsible for all of Consumer Reports unique testing and research that underpins much of its content and policy Wark Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Leah McCormick thank you so much for inviting me welcome indeed Liam This is one of my favorite large organizations Consumers Union puts out Consumer Reports as David said it's a nonprofit it's been around since the 19th thirty's it names names brand names that's its essence product names rates the ones that are better than others vibrant name is as. Possible as human beings can become It takes no advertising at all you supported out there with your contributions and especially subscriptions to Consumer Reports which is on newsstands all over the country but which you can get either through the mail in print or on line and people have told me in reacting to our radio program every week Steve and David that we wet their intellectual appetite and we went to their civic action appetite Well now we're going to whet your consumer purchasing or non purchasing efforts with brand name products that you have or may not have in your home so here we go Liam 1st of all just tell us a little bit about your testing process easier proving grounds for autos before we get into food products and insurance products and home appliances and cars and so forth so we've got a really big testing operation here at Consumer Reports we have a 540 test engineers and testing x. But they're in Yonkers New York where I'm by we have around 60 test labs where we test the really broad range of different product categories we also have a call test track in Connecticut why we test cause Taz and child coffee so a test range from food you eat to the paint you put on your walls cause you buy new appliances you having a kitchen do you give tours at all to people who are curious about your Proving Grounds in Connecticut and were are they or do you give tours Consumer Reports younkers we do we have a big annual meeting where we invite some of our members to come and see how labs and actually last year we did that of the test track in Connecticut and it's a hugely popular day people loved it for all laughs and see what we're up to it's a kind of a fascinating experience. And the car Test Track is I think of the ticket our interest in the Big 300 acre site it's a very impressive facility are you going to be testing some driving cars pretty soon how do you do there both where you can't even get in a. Strike So you know we are seeing more and more family autonomous I guess I would call them features appearing on more more cause whether it's Tesla Sadie's bans all those for example and we do evaluate those as part of our normal test protocol and I think what's interesting about some of those semi autonomous features as many on right now are probably more of a convenience feature they take the stress out of driving but I think the risk is that they're greatly misunderstood if you think that your car can drive itself it really can't you still need to be in control and you still need to be alone so what's going on the some of the features we think can certainly take some of the stresses of driving you know like semi autonomous brakes right yeah we're a huge fan of automatic emergency brakes and forward collision warning some in our in our view they are really a huge step forward in automotive safety essentially if you're driving around and you're not paying attention and you're called a tech something ahead of you it will apply the brakes for you and this is being shown through data to reduce deaths and serious injuries and accidents so we evaluate those systems there's different kinds of systems some money work at low speeds some luck high speed as well and for vehicle manufacturers that install those critical safety systems across the whole range we actually give them extra points in our schools and we know that that is influencing manufacturers to take those things very seriously and to increase how often they fitted in all of that range and moving them to go from optional equipment and the safety systems to standard equipment Well I'm of the view having consulted a lot of people in the know the we're not going to be see self-drive. Being cars for a long time and one reason in addition to how they're going to interact with tens of millions of cars in congested driving driven by human beings you know the arrogance of the algorithms does have its limits the real problem they don't want to discuss in the auto industry or Silicon Valley is hacking they can't deal with the hacking of your car taken in your car away from controls that you are proceeding with whether hacking via the auto manufacturers with upgrades or maliciously like v.w. Did with the nitrogen oxides standard and their software or hacking by nefarious intrusive Wildcat hackers so in rule even to that Li amount I want to start now going right to what people buy regularly or don't buy regulate to see the stunning difference between some products you test and other products you test and give different ratings to and I might say we don't really have consumer education worth the name in our school systems and if we did people would have this kind of mindset they would say you know the Center for some science in the public interest you know the leaders in nutritional education in the country they say that if you spend a few hours learning about the food you can you should bind the food you shouldn't buy you can save hundreds of dollars a year oh well that means let's say you spend 5 hours studying what the Center for Science public interest puts out and you save a $1000.00 a year that is a $1000.00 divided by 5 is $200.00 an hour which is more and most people get at their workplace so that's one mindset to be a more aggressive informed consumer So let's start with one that really caught my attention in your materials and Consumer Reports because it shows so much of what good you do you say. In your testing this $500.00 mattress that provided better back support then the $2275.00 mattress and you name the names of the $2275.00 mattress is the certain comfort smart support h.b. $300.00 Q And the $500.00 mattress is a Denver mattress doctors choice know what occurred to me when I saw that is there must be a huge profit in these mattresses look at all the ads they put in newspapers and this $500.00 company is making a profit what's the difference how can a company charging almost 5 times as much for any inferior mattress still remain in business I think is a great question and I think the mattress choice is one where I think the consumer fails completely in the dark you go into some of the showroom selling mattresses and this is certainly a plus an experience you'll face with kind of aggressive sales people right away just with a really broad range of prices and you have no clue just by visually inspecting the mattresses whether there is any difference between them and this is actually a market whether being lots of new market entrance to a selling predominantly online so it's really I think a market where consumers face a lot of challenges when many new market entrants to coming in with low cost options and much easier ways to buy So what we do is we take all of the key mattresses on the market and we put them through some regular testing we determine which will give you the best to pull off if you sleep on your own or you sleep with your partner and if you know it's a different light or if you're taller if you're still if you sleep on your side if you sleep on your back and also you know which mattress will prove to be the most durable so we put mattresses through Georgia realty test. As well and yes you're right we find that in some cases some very cheap mattresses do better than some more expensive mattresses we've seen mattresses cost up to $45000.00 an hour test and actually not very well well when the Denver mattress doctor's choice company got your information the day they get back to you Are they wild with joy I don't believe they did they didn't get back to us I mean we do have good communication with my new factor as if we find unusual test results or critically if we find safety defects we like to allow the manufacturer to see them as quickly as possible so that they can put them right clearly you know manufacture that perform badly and test then also always so happy some will contact us and say well how can we make up products that others may be just kind of angry with us I guess well here's another one you see the guy who commercial says you can save money by switching end quote to Geico you want to take that one apart but I think what we found here was if you stay with the same car insurance company over a long period of time you won't necessarily be getting the best deal you kind of hope that your loyalty will be rewarded but what we often find is if you actually just keep getting more quote for car insurance and you keep switching you'll actually get a better deal so you know if you think your loyalty is paying off it might not be doing so well some of the information you get comes from your readers and you say quote After 20 years with Geico one of our readers switched to a highly rated Amica s m a conscience company and save $793.00 on her coverage and put That's pretty amazing that starts every year that is incredible isn't it and yes our members are a hugely important result for us we have around $7000000.00 members of Consumer Reports right now and we try to engage as many of those members. As we can every year in our candidates we have a big annual question I have that we send out and we get about a 1000000 responses each year and that gives us incredible data sets and the experiences that consumers are having with that products and services which brands they like which brands I deflect which companies are treating them well which are treating them badly and not give us a huge amount of power in terms of the recommendations that we can make so we often combine the results from our independent lab testing with the experiences of consumers to give us some bright and unique content and recommendations Well we're talking with a limit karma Koos head of testing at Consumers Union which puts out the monthly magazine Consumer Reports which will tell you how to get very soon let's continue our tour in the marketplace you have this tantalizing comment Mercedes-Benz is a luxury brand but what I mean but the one of them models of the the g.l.a. That we tested it's a small s.u.v. It was actually pretty disappointing so we actually found the Subaru cross track which is a much cheaper vehicle actually did better and tests as a good lesson that it's not always about the brand you might like the idea of driving the savings bands and many of them perform very well in our tests but the g.l.a. Certainly didn't again not just shows the importance of being completely fully informed as a consumer you really can't just buy on brand or reputation or price and you really have to do your due diligence when choosing a purchase especially something as important as a car and you go right into deceptive advertising Here's one right off the dinner table because of a lot of nutritional awareness of consumers and pressure feeding back to the chicken processors and chicken so there's some large processes of announced. That from now on folks we're going to sell you chickens without using antibiotics and do you have a qualification about that assurance and these big chicken processors What are they well that's right I mean if it says the country pile ticks on used that can often mean if the chicken gets Elden and if I think can still be used again you have to be very cautious with some of the food labels that you say all said there was one food label that kind of makes us really angry which is when you think that something is labeled as being natural so you might think well not sure a left sounds good but legally speaking it has absolutely no meaning whatsoever it means nothing about whether it's organic or whether it's free of genetically modified ingredients it actually has no meaning in law whatsoever so that's one thing that makes of quite angry and in the antibiotic chicken story that they were saying no interview x. Used for growth promotion of the chicken but doesn't mean they don't use it for other uses and right that's right and we are really concerned with consumers getting exposed to antibiotics through the food because it means that when you get l. And you're given on people ethics by a doctor they're increasingly ineffective so that's something that we think is really really critical and really needs to be result Here's another stunner on your cell phone bill you say 18 t. T. Mobile Sprint rising cost on average $960.00 a year we'll tell you about the carrier that provides better voice quality and cost only 3 $160.00 a year saving $600.00 a year listeners that's another answer by brand name company that you can locate in Consumer Reports and save yourself a bundle of money we'll here's a tantalizing item in Consumer Reports and we're going to tell you how to get it in just a minute Wal-Mart slogan says quote save money live better end quote and Consumer Reports but what's the but Leon McCormick. So we do a lot of surveys of consumers to kind of understand their experience in the marketplace and they will not so I'm playing with Wal-Mart we can pass things like price selection of products and service and overall we find that consumers were less than satisfied at Wal-Mart whereas one of the top scoring walkin chains we found was actually Costco and cuss go force has been claiming this all along but it's good to have a non-partial declaration from Consumer Reports Here's another one that caught my attention which was you said we tested exterior paints to find the brands that maintain their parents the longest What was the lesson learned so yeah we actually test labs Sharon young because we actually have big racks up on the roof where we paint them on different materials and we leave them to be exposed to the weather here which can be pretty severe or it can be very hot and can be very cold and we find that you know the most expensive paint ones always do very very well so we find all kinds of problems with milled you and and cracking and we actually found I think the clock in Kensington time did quite well there not much we can test See this is an example folks are individual consumers not going to go around testing paints the principle of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts really applies to consumers report because it's your subscriptions it's your contributions that make all these professional testing facilities possible sent back to you in very understandable and graphic form every month and Consumer Reports the head of Consumer Reports Marta to La though makes this point all the time but you can't make it too much Here's another aspect of our tour in the marketplace we're talking with Liam McCormack who's head of Consumer Reports testing. Quote want to learn more about an all natural way to help keep your memory sharp now and possibly for years to come and quote. It's skating on thin ice now when you're making that kind of claim but Consumer Reports is known for being able to demonstrate it with strong evidence and that's another answer you'll get in Consumer Reports So now let's ask you Lim How do people get Consumer Reports How much is it cost and what do they get in terms of bonus material so it depends which package you cover as a member of that you can become a member for as little as $30.00 a year which if you think how much money you could say by accessing the information that we provide I personally think that's a pretty good deal and you can become a member by calling us 118-033-3066 extension 30 you can find us online at Consumer Reports dot old and you get actually 2 books in addition don't you the consumers guide in addition to a years subscription you want to describe that. Yes depending on the deal that you join us on you can get a buying guide that really gives a good summary of up to 2000 products that we have tested and we also have another book called Should I eat this which gives you a really good oversight of some of our food and nutrition testing as well yeah it's amazing the consumer guide I've been getting now for years it's almost encyclopedic it's a paperback and it's a reference is sort of the cumulative results kept up to date of Consumer Reports testing and when you get the fresh individual tests in the monthly magazine now one intriguing question our listeners may now be asking themselves how do you go into the stores into the marketplace and anonymously buy the products that you sell because you can give a glimmer to the vendor or when you go into Wal-Mart for example that consumers report is coming in because then they can fool around with what you buy and what you're offered So how do you go about sending your buyers into the stores around the country so we have a team of shoppers who buy all of the products that we test and yeah just to repeat that we actually you know we do buy everything that we test with money provided to us by our members so that's a really critical thing there are lots of journalists who might get free products from companies that we really don't take part in and that that's all so we buy lots of the products that we test online increasingly but also our shelf as just go out like ordinary folks and find the products that we need to test than buy them and bring them back to our allowance and that includes calls as well we test about 60 cause we spend about $2000000.00 a year buying cars to test and again we buy those anonymously we obviously try not to go back to the same dealer too often and that we're buying things kind of all the times yeah it's an essential part of what we do in protecting. I'm in the mid to is critical Speaking of cars one of the great bonuses is your Consumer Reports annual auto issue this is a tremendous service listeners if you're thinking about buying a car or selling a car you can rely and he can your auto issue for detailed ratings reliability recommendations photos and basic price ranges for get this 240 recently tested cars and trucks just mailing clothes card to reserve your issue and I'm reading from one of Consumer Reports promotional materials this is always been heralded as one of the great innovations of Consumer Reports do you want to elaborate on that at all and how popular is so I pull television. The most popular issue in the year for us it's hugely popular hugely important for us and as you say Rich huge amounts of testing and risk that goes into it what I really like about our recommendations is that it really catches the views of all of our members when you choose the car that is recommended by consumer a poll it's also not just based on the testing of things like state 50 and performance and space and room and comfort but it's also based on the experiences of in many cases thousands and thousands of consumers who've also bought that car you know they can tell you how did it last did it was it reliable did the dealer treat me well what I recommend a friend to buy this cost so we really are I think the original crowd sourcing of information we get the views of up to a 1000000 consumers every year and state that and so us goes in right things and recommendations so yeah the April of 2 things issue is critical and you know we would certainly say that nobody should buy a new or used car without consulting us fast this is on line is. Oh absolutely we have a really good Web site Consumer Reports stuff will go see all the sold I'm going to updating that everything gold day with new stories new products that we have tested and you write things so you know the magazine is fantastic and gives you a really good overview of what they're up to say have an if you're in the market for something and you want the latest information you should also be looking at our Web site well here's one dealing with the service quote your doctor recommends you have a cat scan but this should tell you how much radiation you're getting compared to a chest x. Ray or our cat scan is overused there are often studies in the past years that indicate that cat scans are indeed overused and they're very expensive and you know who pays for them ultimately you'll find out more in Consumer Reports another aspect to my attention Liam want to make a $450000.00 nest egg last a lifetime question mark so you're getting into retirement consumer issues. Yeah absolutely so so we know for many consumers preparing for retirement is obviously absolutely critical and it's an issue that we suddenly don't think many of you know many enough consumers think closely enough about so again that's something we get lots of advice so that you can be well prepared for your retirement well back to the products you say a $150.00 microwave that was rated better than a $305.00 microwave tell us the names of the brands so we found in our tests the g.e. Profile p e m microwave cost $305.00 was actually out the phone by a can last $71.00 to $3.00 microwaves So again that just goes to show you shouldn't just. Rely on price as an indicator of quality or indeed brand on an indicator of quality and we would certainly advise that if you are in the market for a new product that you check out our right things in order to determine which is the best buy for you Well here's a collision between 2 giants who produce laptop computers how about this one you say Sure you could spend $2325.00 on an Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch m p t u 2 l l slash a butt and then you compare it with the Samsung Yes or the Samsung notebook 9 in a test actually came out with pretty much the same excellent level of performance as the Apple laptop again another great way to save some money no sense and it is not that I shall about advertising want to put comparative ads like to enter ads or do they when you're selling to Americans I'm sure they do to a certain extent but again I think you know the consumer really can't rely on ads and really have to do their own due diligence and you know what we do is we test things independently through our rigorous tests and we can show you where you can make the staving so we would certainly say yeah don't rely on what a manufacturer might be telling you rely on what an independent source of information like Consumer Reports can tell you it's amazing how often the big brands come up short compared to lesser known Here's one you say sure tight plus ultra did an excellent job cleaning in our tests but it was one of the most expensive laundry detergents we tested that's right ona test of laundry detergent the tide did a very good job but if you were to buy the members mock ultimate clean from Sam's Club it also did a very good job and it cost about half as much so a laundry detergent is obviously some. Thing you're using all year round so I will let the price difference might not seem much when you multiply it over a year or a number of you have an uprising have exciting you can make who Here's another problem that consumers are for add to grapple with in the past years your testing discovers a product defect you can tell people about and Consumer Reports but there are millions of people out there with the product and it's defective and it's hazardous and they don't read Consumer Reports so consumers union said well we have to have an advocacy arm and you opened up offices in California and Washington d.c. To advocate for example to get the auto safety agency in a different transportation this kind of information so that they perhaps follow up with the recall of millions of these vehicles and in one recent a few tears when you compared this is amazing and I'm quoting the highest rated mid-size s.u.v. In our tests was a Toyota Highlander it was our top rated non luxury mid-sized s.u.v. With an excellent road test score and good fuel economy and then you have a picture of it and right next to it you have a picture of the lowest rated small s.u.v. In our tests which is the FIA $500.00 x. Which was in your words under powered with a jittery ride overly touchy brake title and uncomfortable seats for update Center for Consumer Reports today so I have a couple questions one What if you just happen to buy a lemon and it wasn't representative of all the ads how do you take care for that possibility and the 2nd is do these companies ever challenge Consumer Reports test when they come out negative on a stud to take the lemon. Point 1st so obviously when we buy a car we buy it from a showroom and the dealership just like any other consumer would. Goal is to make sure that it's representative of the ones that consumers buy and I have to in some cases where we found problems with the product and when we contact the manufacturer we have it serviced the was indeed a defect that we have a problem with the product we buy we would get it serviced like an ordinary consumer would to have that defect follow it up but also remember with doing stuff and we're getting responses from up to a 1000000 consumers every year in the case of colic the Toyota Highlander that you highlight we would have many thousands of reports tens of thousands of reports probably from Highlander owners so we could compare their experience with our own so if we happen to have a lot of problems with a car that we tested we wouldn't rely on that information we would rely on the reliability data from tens of thousands of subscribers in order to determine whether that's a car that should be recommended or not and one of the issues is we want to buy the latest models as soon as that launched and sometimes it can take manufacturers a little while to sort out a brand new car we often see brand new models have more defects and ultimate stablish models so that's certainly one of our pieces of advice is if you're in the market for a brand new car you might want to wait a little bit and not just buy the brand new model as soon as it's launched then however your advocacy offices just briefly yes act because the is a critical part of what we do when we have advocacy offices in Washington d.c. And in California and then we do find defects with products we would work very closely with colleagues and advocacy to see whether that's a product that should be recalls and. You know many products of being recalled as a result of safety defects that we've identified in a test in some cases child costly strugglers and indeed some cause yeah that's an absolutely critical part of what we do we're here to make the world a favor and better place for all consumers not just our members but obviously our members benefits increasingly from all of the information that we can provide them to be really savvy consumers will let me ask some critical questions of you Liam McCormack say representing some feedback from some companies who think their whole story is not being told when you show for example that the Apple computer is so much more expensive than a similar Samsung they're going to say yeah there is a price difference Consumer Reports but we have better warranties we have better service we have better other things that you're not taking into account that explain the price difference how do you take these variables into account so in some cases for example if a product has really good after a cast of us compared to others again we would take that up throughout date so we serve a subscribers our members every year and if that's true then we would report that in our findings and you know in some cases consumers might want to pay more if I might particularly like a brand and that's fine you know we don't have a problem with that we just hope that consumers are doing that with that I've opened that I know there are cheaper alternatives that might offer you know just as good performance so that if you change then suspend Moyen doing it from a position of information lack of information and the other example you say that you found a $200.00 blender this better than a $600.00 blender and the question is do you allow the manufacture of. $200.00 blundered to advertise that consumers report has just shown there are blenders just as good if not better but it's one 3rd the price buy it but we do not allow anyone to use our writings or recommendations in the advertising for that product you know we get asked that a lot by manufacturers when the recommend something and we have very strict policies that the independence of the brand in our organization is critical so suck not to write things recommendations goals company used in ads by manufacturers i'm not do we take advertising in any of my games are a Web site our independence is critical to us the money we get from our members we use testing and research and advocacy and we take no money through advertising it's all well the critical rebuttals to that is obvious that if you allow manufacturers to trumpet ties of ratings about their products as long as they explicitly mention you accurately they don't put you into a run context you're making a market work far better because they can reach millions of people saying look at our product is cheaper it's going to save you money don't take our word Consumer Reports says What's wrong with that it's long is they don't distort your words and your findings. Well I think that's a big if and I think our concern is that if we allowed manufacturers to use our ratings and recommendations in their advertising that they would distort it that they wouldn't give the whole picture so for us it's critical that our recommendations are seen in context so even the best products may have some defects and the worst products might have some benefit and when it comes to making the personal choice the choice that's right to you it's really critical that you see all of the information you know we if you mean our ratings you know recommendations kind of an average consumer if you like and if you have particular usage patterns of your car you'll print sorry a laptop if you're using a laptop for playing games or off road ability that's very important to you then you probably have to look in detail right things to work out exactly which product is best for you and you know our concern is that advertisers may misquotes what we say for their own benefit so the full context is critical we think what if they just refer to your magazine without saying anything else that you gave them a top rating just you know just refer to your magazine Yeah we don't allow that right now you know we are very cautious and we really want to protect our independence so that our reputation is completely on blemished in the eyes of consumers and you know there are lots of different companies and entities out there writing products right now and I think the real question is which one can you trust there were lots of user reviews there are other websites writing products and for us it's critical that we maintain trust that concealment know that when it comes to trust we are the ones who you should turn to well at your man ask for Consumer Reports before we ask Steve and David how they're reacting as consumers to what we've been talking about Lena McCormick the head of testing for Consumers Union. People all of time get these newsletters by doctors with white coats pictured in the newsletter about all of the things that can prevent cancer cure cancer help all kinds of maladies and ailments and for years Consumer Reports would never get into this area and now you're really getting into this area for example and that our earlier point about the truth about protecting your memory you do describe some foods that people can eat to help their memory which you say quote include nuts whole grains in olive oil may help boost memory better than any supplement and then you even get on thinner ice when you talk about hundreds of nutritious and delicious eating secrets and what to eat to help boost memory keep your heart healthy prevent disease shed pounds stay strong and vital and you have a section on reducing your risk of cancer quote this crunchy vegetable may haunt the proliferation of cancer cells in your body next paragraph longevity these 6 delicious foods are great sources of the single nutrient that only has energy and health in every cell of your body and may increase your lifespan end quote Note the use of the word may what difference is this from these newsletters of people are getting from doctors around the country so we consulted a really broad range of x. But and found one next on all of them a claim such as the we know it can be very confusing for consumers when there are all kinds of claims made you know one minute red wine is good for you the next minute I had fear in consumers don't really know who they can trust so we actually consult medical experts who actually look at all of the medical opinion in any given area before forming views that we would then report on site again it's kind of something a consumer called necessarily do for themselves and maybe something you can't rely on an individual x. So we really all looking at the totality of evidence. Well this is encouraging in a way but then you know it's going to generate some criticism that you are news you see for example vitamin e. Supplements Why are experts don't recommend them for anyone and quote and there are serious abuses in overselling supplements for everything I mean some people have called a lot of these supplement promotions a racket so it's good at least you are most careful in the Sr recommendations using the word may on studies in reputable medical journals and other reports that come out from reputable sources and scientific examinations that allow the options for revisions so they're not stuck in a mindset that keep their minds open for evidence before we turn to Stephen and David can you tell us again how people can get Consumer Reports and what versions so as well as the monthly magazine which you may be familiar with we also have a Web site consumer of pull the fold which we keep up to date and we updated every single day so if you're interested in becoming a member of Consumer Reports You can call us 118-033-3066 extension 30 you can find us online at Consumer Reports tough old and this information there on how to become a subscriber so we would separately you know I recommend that if you're in the market for a big item or you just want to be a standing consumer that you become a member of our organization you give them a risk free copy don't you if they just want to see what it's like without committing to a subscription Yeah that's right we have various different offices and yes if you want to get a risk free sample issue of Consumer Reports that is certainly one of our offices we can do justice to the number of products. Tested by Consumer Reports but be assured that it's far more categories and we touched on in this interview with Leon McCormack one of my favorite issues of Consumer Reports is title too many meds I guess there's a lot of evidence there are too many medicines being taken and in combination with one another that do not exactly help your problems in your elements listeners All right so let's ask our consumers Steve score Ben and David Feldman What's your reaction do you subscribe to Consumer Reports are you astonished by the opportunities to save money and aggravation we used to subscribe I'm going to resubscribe now but I had a question Liam about something you talked about earlier which was mattresses How do you test matches I know with cars you can an expert car drivers but you have experts sleepers it seems like a very subjective judgment match people who work for Donald Trump. So we do actually a lot of lab tests on mattresses so we have all kinds of different grades that can sort of simulate different types of uses we do juror ability testing using really big role as very rigorous and scientific and repeatable tests but they're already grounded in you know real world life questions you know if I am small than life and my partner is big and heavy which one will ensure that we don't roll in together you know these are real kind of questions and we have developed a lab based test that enable us to answer those but again we also survey all subscribers and they tell us which brands of mattress they like and which brands they dislike so we find a lot of correlation there between our lab tests and subscribers use as well how about the composition of the mattresses some people say they don't want to buy mattresses made of synthetics they want wool and cotton and there is a company just started a New Jersey selling what's known as a green mattress totally organic rules and cottons which your recommendation to consumers are now do test on that so we don't really test for the specific components that go into the making of the product you know we fully appreciate that will be important for some subscribers you know we do put them into brackets that you will find so there are in a sprung mattresses there are also memory foam style mattresses which some consumers really like others less so we would certainly say if you're in the market for a mattress if at all possible you should try it yourself in the store obviously the Remora momentous is being sold online Well what's interesting is they offer a good return policies as well so you can try it at home and then if you're dissatisfied it's possible increasingly to send it back because certainly it's a product where you might want to do some research you might want to go to a store and try some of that there. From categories and work out what's important for you because a done deal I was going to say that there was a time when California Governor Jerry Brown insisted you don't need a mattress you could just sleep on the floor with a pillow and a bamboo mat which I think a lot of back problems stem from bad mattresses Ralph may have touched on this you know the New York Times has discovered there's money to be made in buying guides in doing what you're doing and they purchased wire cutter which tests products and then links to Amazon dot com and The New York Times gets a small percentage of what you buy from their recommendations through wire cutter who's protecting the consumers when it comes to protecting consumers there's money to be made in protecting consumers now well we also enable consumers to buy products on our Web site really as a convenience for me the difference is really in the Fair and The Sun the independence of the testing you know there are many review sites are web user kind of formed by the judgments of an individual person without much so that lab testing the science behind it so we certainly think that the science the evidence that lies behind claims and the setting those is critical and also you know there are many things that we find in outcast that consumers couldn't or individuals couldn't find for themselves so for example if you think about a child call seats if you were to assess those you might be able to determine whether they were easy to fix easy to clean but you wouldn't be able to determine how well wonder protect your child in the crash so we have sort of simulated crashes where we evaluate which child costly would do best in a range of different accidents and areas so that the school uses you from services like Yelp for instance absolutely So obviously if you're looking at user reviews user comments it's obviously it's impossible for a user to assess. Safety issues all you know if you think about a vacuum cleaner as a user might be able to determine whether a vacuum cleaner picks up visible does at all tests can show you which vacuum cleaner best picks up but which is deeply embedded in your and your coffee and if you are not removing that you might be causing your family and your children breathing difficulties over time so again we can test the things that consumers don't even know that they should care about well and that point we do have to conclude I hope Consumer Reports is going into the schools the schools should teach their children how to buy what not to buy and certainly interest them and I hope listeners will use Consumer Reports stage Kate their own children who often are very often victims of frauds and deceptions in the marketplace thank you very much Liam McCormack and thank all the good people in Yonkers and the proving grounds in Connecticut for their tremendous work and for showing how the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts and you listeners are the critical parts that make this happen you fund less and get this wonderful feedback for a higher quality standard of living with more safety and health as well thank you Liam you know welcome it's been a great pleasure of being right to put you back all of the work that we do we've been speaking to Leah McCormick head of testing at Consumer Reports be a link to his work at Ralph Nader Radio Hour dot com Is there a placebo effect to making purchases wary because you're buying a brand name you think you're getting something better and if you ask the consumer will insist that this is better because of the branding of the product Oh definitely that's why when they evaluate the assets of a big corporation the trademark. Amount is a huge portion of the value the corporation the brand names of like these big food companies that are in your supermarket they just smack a label on a pasta sauce you know and you're convinced that it's tasting much better do you fall prey to that do you fall prey to branding you know no I don't at all 1st of all I buy very little and most of it is fresh fruits and vegetables and I know the organic food carriers for example so you tend to you go to certain brands that aren't widely publicized but they're very reliable in terms of their fealty to organic label on the package the other thing is because you were once known as a consumer advocate we don't ever hear of the phrase consumer advocate you know baked into this economy is the art of the sale convincing people to buy things they don't need you know did you run up against this idea that what when consumers are informed. That's actually bad for the economy do we have politicians and a government that thinks that Consumer Reports can destroy our economy especially well that some of the corporate deal logs do but Consumer Reports impact is very simple the more informed you are you help drive out of the marketplace the bad companies and you reward the better companies and the bad companies don't like that because they want to deceive you with advertising puffery and brand name mischief and get away with it do you think the consumer has been in fits Ally's more since you 1st started being a consumer advocate I think Americans are more susceptible to advertising now than they were say 40 years ago and it differs there are more susceptible to certain kinds of ads which they never were exposed to years ago they're not as susceptible to the flim flam and auto ads for example and they're not as susceptible and clothing ads but it's the finance area where they're really tricked constantly you know on interest rates and no money down all that it's horrible they really get sucked into that very quickly 2 thirds of our economy is what we buy here in the United States most states in the 50 states there are very few departments of consumer protection is usually handled by their local attorney general and and that's right you know and that's that's it all time low in the last 50 years they started the budgets done to Republicans take over in a get rid of them and here and Washington d.c. Is the Federal Trade Commission that handles consumer complaints and maybe the consumer protection financial bureau over at the Federal Reserve was there ever talk of a Department of Consumer Affairs a Cabinet level Department of Consumer Affairs you know. Yes we proposed one and we proposed a consumer protection agency that would challenge low energy regulatory agencies like the Product Safety Commission the Food and Drug Administration and taken to court when they're not doing the job that they're authorized and statute require them to do we almost got that through we got it through the house one time we got through the Senate one time one guy Senator Allen from Alabama or Georgia Alabama filibustered it when we got it through both House and Senate with Senator river cough and others and they killed in the late seventy's and never came back again it was only $15000000.00 but it could wreck havoc against a lobbyist who are a nest a size in these federal regulatory agencies right that's when you had all these people send nickels to their right. You know and a cool campaign Yeah what a different country we could be right now you know you know Ok When we come back we'll work our way through some listener questions but 1st let's take a short break and find out what kind of monkey shines like nice suits are up to with our Corporate Crime Reporter Russell Mocha ever You're listening to the wrath Neda Radio Hour on the national press only in Washington d.c. This year Corporate Crime Reporter morning minute for once they say boy 142018 Russell Mo Khyber European plane maker Airbus group said it will pay $99400000.00 to resolve the German privately probe related to the sale of Euro fighter aircraft to Austria in 2003 the German profound a negligent breach of supervisory duties by on the members of their bosses former management team. The notice alleges that certain former management negligently failed to ensure proper internal controls that would have prevented employees from making payments to business partners without proving documented services in exchange Airbus said in the statement the company provided money to others but placekicker said the transactions were fundamentally legal in typical for the industry prosecutors said the problem was Airbus could not account for how the money eventually was used for the Corporate Crime Reporter I'm also macabre. Thank you Russell you're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour My name is Steve Grove and along with David Feldman Routh we have time for a I think one listener question David you want to do the honors This one comes from David de Miller out why are we so hard on some fast it was barely an interview more like a. It's more like a grumpy law professors Inquisition Tim thoughts on health justice are very interesting have him back on and let him speak. Well I think the world of Tim Faust I wanted to extend them because like other advocates for single payer or full Medicare for everybody would free choice of doctor and hospital coming in much cheaper than the present corrupt system they don't use all the arguments they have into who were the fraud in the system computerized building was $350000000000.00 a year 1000000000 and the number of people who die from the system is 5003 Televisa week from preventable problems and hospitals according to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Now if you don't use those 2 arguments you're you're not strengthening the case for Medicare fraud and I was trying to impress on him and he told me later that he was taking notes in other words he had an open mind and knew when he was being expanded in his life's cause as he goes around the country so he was less sensitive than you David Miller Well thank you for the question David keep all your questions coming and rouse Facebook page or on the Ralph Nader radio our website or on the route into radio on our Facebook page I want to thank our guests once again for the entire hour Liam McCormick head of testing and research and Consumer Reports and for those of you listening on the radio that's our show for you podcast listeners stay tuned for bonus material we call the wrap up or out that has a weekly column but Nader dot org for more from Russell Mo Khyber go to Corporate Crime Reporter dot com Visit the American Museum of tort law and go to tort museum that org And check out the chart museum bookstore from grossing books a memorabilia the producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee worked and Matthew Marron our executive producer is Alan Minsky theme music stand up rise up was written and performed by camp heiress join us next week thank you out. Thank you Steve David to Jimmy and for our listeners remember Consumer Reports dot org You can get a free copy a free sample copy of that monthly publication that can save you so much money and so much aggravation. See the troubling things. Let's. Say you just want to know the signs. Were. All excited. And. Me. Drink she. Me games. You can. Get me. To drink she. Came. You got. $3000.00 did you know it costs $3000.00 a month to keep k. In a straight $89.00 f.m. Alive we have no sugar daddies who are big time corporate sponsors and so we depend on you and you alone for 90 percent of our operating income you know that a vibrant democracy depends on the free flow of information you know that democracy is threatened at this very moment by the lack of available independent noncommercial news and cultural information you think of financial. Pledge to us and we pledge to bring you the finest local national and international news and information about what is important to you go today do it now donate from $2.00 to $20.00 a month and do your part to keep people powered radio. 89 point one f.m. As a voice of truth telling donate today at k n s j w. S j. Direct from the broadcast center. With former San Diego city attorney Michael Carey and attorney and former political science professor Douglas Holbrook This is Mike you. Mike.