Pharmaceutical companies in a quandary about what they can and cannot do on Web 2.0 are welcoming news that the Food and Drug Administration will hold a two-day public hearing on the issue Nov. 12-13 in Washington, Rich Thomaselli reports. Ad agencies that specialize in health-care marketing say the hearings, and any resulting guidelines, will be helpful for the industry which, by and large, has avoided participating in social media for fear of an FDA warning letter. "It's about time," says an executive for one top-five pharmaceutical company. "Any guidance at all is better than having no guidance, which is …

Laraine Dave says a concoction made from black tea and sugar that is fermented for up to a month and then mixed with fruit juices cured her breast cancer. Her son, George Thomas Dave, has been brewing the concoction, called kombucha, and selling 16-ounce bottles of it for $5 a pop in Whole Foods. Not surprisingly, GT's Organic Raw Kombucha's success has gotten the attention of the big boys, Laurie Burkitt reports. And it's about time, given that the sour-tasting brew is purported to date back to China's Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.). Honest Tea, which is 40% owned by Coca-Cola, …

The announcers for the inaugural game at the new plus-size football stadium in Dallas Monday night kept referring to the humongous screen hanging above the turf as a "Jumbotron." Well, that's a Sony product and the video board is actually a Diamond Vision from Mitsubishi Electric. In a statement, Richard Sandomir reports, Mitsubishi said it was "like fingernails on a chalkboard" to hear Michaels refer to the giant video boards as Jumbotrons "time and again." A field goal with no time left on the clock won the game for the New York Giants, adding a more offensive screech …

In its first move since it was given the power to regulate tobacco products, the Food and Drug Administration has banned the sale of fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes in the U.S. "Almost 90% of adult smokers started smoking as teenagers," according to FDA commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg. "These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers." Sold in flavors such as vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, the cigarettes are mostly made by smaller firms or imported from overseas, Stephanie Desmon reports. The ban also includes the more popular …

Responding to criticism about the power and scope of a proposed consumer financial protection agency, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) says that he intends to exempt certain non-financial businesses from oversight by the new agency, Brady Dennis reports. "That means that merchants and retailers can continue to give their customers tabs and layaway plans without becoming subject to a new layer of regulation," Frank wrote to members of the House Financial Services Committee, which he leads. Doctors and other businesses that bill customers after a service is provided, including telephone and cable companies, also will be excluded, as will auto …

A 12-week contest called "Wrangler Face Off" will award a grand prize of $2,500 and a new wardrobe to the man voted as the "ultimate Wrangler guy" at a special Web site for the promotion, Barry Janoff reports. Men eligible for the contest are must upload a photo and answer a "short set of questions designed to give contestants the opportunity to prove why they should be named a Wrangler man." The man whose profile receives the most votes each week is dubbed "a Wrangler guy" for which he receives a pair of jeans with $100 …

Whole Foods, the official grocer for Bravo's six-year-old hit show "Top Chef," gets plenty of exposure for nothing more than the food the contestants use for their dishes and the inconvenience of having a camera crew shooting inside a store, Brian Gaar reports. "It's kind of a natural fit," says Kate Lowery, a Whole Foods spokeswoman, about the three-year-old "win-win" partnership. No money is exchanged, and Lowery says the agreement is "pretty loose." For example, there's no agreement that Whole Foods must be mentioned a certain number of times. "Their viewers are our shoppers, and vice versa," she says. …