J&J Said to Weigh $3 Billion Settlement of Its Hip Implant Cases - Bloomberg

J&J Said to Weigh $3 Billion Settlement of Its Hip Implant Cases - Bloomberg:

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), the world’s biggest seller of health-care products, has discussed paying more than $3 billion to settle lawsuits over its recalled hip implants, according to five people familiar with the matter.

J&J seeks to resolve as many as 11,500 lawsuits in the U.S. and has considered paying more than $300,000 per case, according to the people. Such a settlement would exceed $3 billion if most plaintiffs accept the terms, an amount 50 percent larger than that proposed in previous discussions.

Enlarge image
Michael Kelly, attorney for plaintiff Loren Kransky, holds up an ASR XL hip implant made by Johnson & Johnson during his opening statement to the jury at the trial of Kransky v. DePuy, at the California Superior Court in Los Angeles, on Jan. 25, 2013. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg


A $3 billion settlement would dwarf a 2001 accord Sulzer (SUN) AG reached with patients who claimed that company’s hip and knee implants were defective. Sulzer, a Winterthur, Switzerland-based pump maker, agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve those suits, then the largest settlement involving hip implants.
Any accord would be affected by the outcome of seven product-liability trials between September and January, according to the people, who aren’t authorized to make the negotiations public.
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Students’ use of laptops in class lowers grades: Canadian study - The Globe and Mail

Students’ use of laptops in class lowers grades: Canadian study - The Globe and Mail:
by Michael Oliveira

Laptops have replaced pen and paper for many post-secondary students but a Canadian study suggests using computers during lectures could be hurting their grades and lowering their classmates’ marks.
For the study, published earlier this year in the journal Computers & Education, research subjects in two experiments were asked to attend a university-level lecture and then complete a multiple-choice quiz based on what they learned.
In the first experiment, which was designed to gauge how multitasking affects learning, all the participants used laptops to take notes during a lecture on meteorology. But half were also asked to complete a series of unrelated tasks on their computers when they felt they could spare some time. Those tasks — which included online searches for information — were meant to mimic what distracted students might do during class.
In the second experiment, some students were given pencils and paper to take notes during a lecture while others worked on laptops. Researchers wanted to observe if the students taking notes the old-fashioned way would be distracted by having computer screens around them.
Faria Sana, who co-authored the study with fellow doctoral student Tina Weston, said she expected lower test marks for students who were asked to multitask during the experiment, or were seated near other students using laptops. But the distraction effect was stronger than she hypothesized.
“We really tried to make it pretty close to what actually happens in the lectures, we found that lo and behold, the students who multitasked performed much worse on the final test and those who were seated around peers who were multitasking also performed much worse on the final test,” said Sana.

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Seaworthy? Oracle's Ellison - We certainly never intended for people to be hurt CBS//Charlie Rose

Voyages>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º>: Seaworthy? Oracle's Ellison - We certainly never intended for people to be hurt CBS//Charlie Rose:


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OTHERWISE: S.E.C. Is Said to Press JPMorgan for an Admission of Wrongdoing - NYTimes.com

OTHERWISE: S.E.C. Is Said to Press JPMorgan for an Admission of Wrongdoing - NYTimes.com:

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OTHERWISE: Fordham Law Mourns Passing of Hon. Joseph M. McLaughlin ’59 - Fordham Law

OTHERWISE: Fordham Law Mourns Passing of Hon. Joseph M. McLaughlin ’59 - Fordham Law:
Judge McLaughlin was the Dean of Fordham Law School for ten years. And a graduate of the Brooklyn Preparatory School.  Like me he treasured his years there. - gwc

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge:   "In the late 1980's a wide prosecutorial net was cast upon Wall Street. Along with the usual flotsam and jetsam, the government's catch included some of Wall Street's biggest, brightest, and now infamous — Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Michael Milken, Robert Freeman, Martin Siegel, Boyd L. Jeffries, and Paul A. Bilzerian — each of whom either pleaded guilty to or was convicted of crimes involving illicit trading scandals. Also caught in the government's net was defendant-appellant John A. Mulheren, Jr., the chief trader at and general partner of Jamie Securities Co. ("Jamie"), a registered broker-dealer...."

The opening lines of his opinion reversing the conviction of Mulheren as unsupported by evidence.  U.S. v. Mulheren, 938 F. 2d 363 (1991)



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The case for DES in STEMI patients | theheart.org

The case for DES in STEMI patients | theheart.org:

New York, NY - Newer-generation drug-eluting stents, particularly the everolimus-eluting stent (Xience V, Abbot; Promus, Boston Scientific), significantly reduce the risk of target vessel revascularization (TVR) in patients with ST-segment-elevation MI (STEMI) without increasing the risk of adverse safety outcomes, including rates of stent thrombosis, when compared with bare-metal stents [1].These are the principal findings of a new meta-analysis of 28 randomized, controlled clinical trials involving more than 34 000 patient-years of follow-up.Published online August 6, 2013 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions, the analysis showed that compared with the sirolimus-eluting stent (Cypher, Cordis), the paclitaxel-eluting stent (Taxus, Boston Scientific), and bare-metal stents, the use of an everolimus-eluting stent reduced the relative risk of stent thrombosis 62%, 61%, and 58%, 

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Generic drug mfrs should have same safety warning duty as brand name patentees - New England Journal of Medicine

On Access and Accountability - Two Supreme Court Rulings on Generic Drugs
by Marcia Boumil, J.D., LL, and Gregory Curfman, MD
New England Journal of Medicine, August 7, 2013

Generic drug manufacturers are not free to add safety warnings without FDA permission, the United States Supreme Court held in Mutual Pharmaceutical v. Bartlett. In a 5-4 decision over Sonia Sotomayor's vigorous dissent the Court dismissed the judgment in favor of a woman blinded by a drug which now carries a warning about the danger.

Tufts medical school professor Marcia Boumil and Dr. Gregory Curfman, executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine criticize the Bartlett ruling but report that the FDA has announced a proposed rule that would "create parity" between brand-name drug patent holders and generic manufacturers.  That is the FDA plans to change its regulations to impose on generics the same duty to upgrade warnings as do new drug manufacturers still protected by patent. They write:

The Bartlett ruling, however, leaves generics  companies unaccountable to consumers — but it has apparently  prompted the FDA to consider  revising its own labeling rule.  Days after the Court’s decision,  the agency released a proposed  revision that would “create parity” in the ability of brand-name  and generic drug companies to  control their labels’ contents. If  the proposed rule is adopted, it  may increase the cost of generic  drugs, since companies will be  accountable for their labels’  contents and so will have to invest more heavily in their own  safety studies. If the Bartlett ruling stands, the cost of generic  drugs may be reduced, since  companies won’t be liable for  most of the harm caused by  their products. Since nearly four  of five prescriptions are now  filled with generic drugs, the  impact of these decisions on this  already large and growing industry can be expected to be substantial.

BP seeks to stop payouts to claims administrator | The Trinidad Guardian Newspaper

BP seeks to stop payouts to claims administrator | The Trinidad Guardian Newspaper:

NEW ORLEANS—BP is balking at paying more than US$130 million in fees for the court-supervised administrator of its multibillion dollar settlement with Gulf Coast businesses and residents after the 2010 Gulf oil spill. A federal magistrate has scheduled a hearing today for BP to show why it shouldn’t be ordered to fund claims administrator Patrick Juneau’s proposed third-quarter budget.
In a letter Monday, a BP claims official said the company cannot determine if Juneau’s budget request is reasonable without more documentation. The official also claimed the settlement programme has been plagued by poor productivity and excessive costs. Separately, BP has asked a judge to suspend all settlement payments while former FBI Director Louis Freeh investigates alleged fraud in the programme.
BP Plc said Monday it has discovered new evidence of fraud and conflicts of interest in the programme that is paying billions of dollars to businesses and residents who claimed they were harmed by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The oil company made the disclosure in a filing with the US District Court in New Orleans as part of a renewed effort to suspend the payouts until Freeh, the court-appointed monitor, finishes investigating the payout programme.
BP said it learned within the last week that two lawyers reviewing appeals of disputed claims were partners at law firms representing claimants before the Court Supervised Settlement Programme (CSSP), and thus had apparent conflicts of interest. It also said it learned through its fraud hotline of allegations that a worker at a Mobile, Alabama spill claims centre helped people submit fraudulent claims in exchange for a share of the settlement amounts. BP said the CSSP suspended two employees in connection with this matter.
“BP should not have to face the substantial risk of irreparable harm from improper payments,” the company said. Temporarily halting payments until Freeh finishes his report is “modest relief” that will at most “slightly delay” payouts, which have been running at US$93 million a week, it added. Juneau, the Louisiana lawyer who administers the payout programme, previously announced an internal probe of allegations that a former worker in the payout programme referred claimants to lawyers in exchange for a share of payments

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HarrisMartin - Article - N.J. Court Wants Proposed Jury Instructions, Questionnaire 2 Weeks Before Oct. 21 DePuy Hip Trial

HarrisMartin - Article - N.J. Court Wants Proposed Jury Instructions, Questionnaire 2 Weeks Before Oct. 21 DePuy Hip Trial:

N.J. Court Wants Proposed Jury Instructions, Questionnaire 2 Weeks Before Oct. 21 DePuy Hip Trial

August 5, 2013

HACKENSACK, N.J. — New Jersey Superior Court Judge Brian R. Marinotti has ordered counsel for parties in the state’s first scheduled DePuy ASR hip implant trial to submit proposed jury questionnaires, verdict forms and jury instructions by Oct. 7.

That was one of several deadlines included in a July 26 pre-trial order in a case scheduled for trial beginning Oct. 21 in the Bergen County Superior Court, where the New Jersey ASR Hip cases are coordinated before Judge Martinotti.

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State Oceanic Administration sued over oil production in spill-hit Bohai Bay | South China Morning Post

State Oceanic Administration sued over oil production in spill-hit Bohai Bay | South China Morning Post:

China’s State Oceanic Administration (SOA) is being sued for allowing US oil major ConocoPhillips to resume production after spills off northern China in 2011, state media reported on Monday.

The Global Times newspaper, affiliated with the ruling Communist Party, said the SOA confirmed it was being pursued for administrative misconduct.

The action is being mounted by the All-China Environment Federation, which describes itself on its website as a non-profit civil society organisation supported by the government.

It is rare for a Chinese official agency to face court action from another government-backed entity.

The spills in June 2011 at the offshore Penglai field, jointly developed by ConocoPhillips and state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, allowed more than 3,000 barrels of oil and oil-based mud – used as a lubricant in drilling – to vent into Bohai Bay.

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