Drug Recall Lawyer Blog

Good morning! Here are the week’s top stories:

• Topamax: Johnson & Johnson is going to pay over $81 million (articles here and here in criminal and civil fines for illegally promoting Topamax. That’s a mere 0.070% of 2009’s $1.15 billion in sales, and 0.039% of 2008’s 2.7 billion in sales (quite the deterrent, eh?). Nevertheless, this compounds J&J’s woes in light of the current Tylenol recall.
• Topamax Whistleblowers: Here’s an article about the courageous Michigan whistleblowers who made it all happen.
• Vaccines & Autism: Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British physician who wrote the initial Lancet article linking autism to vaccines, has been disbarred from the practice of medicine. He did not offer evidence on his behalf, and he has about a month to appeal.
• BPA—now in cans?: USA Today and Dr. Gupta report on the presence of BPA in cans, and discuss whether pregnant women in particular should be concerned. For more on BPA, see our prior blog posts.
• St. Jude Medical: The FDA recently issued a warning letter to St. Jude Medical about overpromotion of its Epicor Ablation System, used to treat atrial fibrillation. See the Forbes article and the FDA’s warning letter.
• Las Vegas Hepatitis Punitives: See one reactionist and alarmist article, “Health Cost Hikes May Follow $500M Jury Award in Hepatitis C Case.”
• Neurontin: Last week, Pfizer settled a Neurontin wrongful death case for a confidential amount.

Have a great week!

Here are this week’s stories:

• Dietary Supplements: The FDA Law Blog comments about the FDA’s compliance program for dietary supplements.
• Vaccine-Autism Litigation: Drug and Device Law Blog thinks the most recent Federal Circuit decision basically seals the coffin in this litigation.
• Maryland Whistleblower Protection: Pat Malone writes about a Maryland appellate case approving protection of a nurse’s job when reporting dangerous hospital practices. This could have reverberations for other whistleblower cases, including products cases. See this website for more information on the False Claims Act. And, see this website for more about the whistleblower mindset blowing-the-whistle-on-drugmakers-misdeed-takes-guts-stamina.
• Fosamax: most of the belleweather cases will be tried this summer and fall (HT: Shearlings Got Ploughed).
• CT Radiation: great audio article by NPR.
• Big Brother: Pharmalot reports that GlaxoSmithKline doesn’t like its employees visiting CafePharma, a drug blog devoted to employee criticisms of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

Happy Monday!

In Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, the plaintiffs are appealing to the United States Supreme Court from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They believe that the administrative set-up of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (est’d 1988) is an insufficient remedy for vaccine-related injuries. Under the Act, designed to encourage drug companies to create vaccines, injured consumers receive damages under a no-fault system, decided by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The petition was granted on March 8.

In this case, the Bruesewitz’s child received a standard DPT vaccine, which caused seizures and permanent neurological injury. The question presented is whether the national Childhood Vaccine Injury Act preempts all vaccine design defect claims, regardless whether the vaccine’s side effects were unavoidable.

So what do you think? Has the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act outlived its usefulness (assuming it was ever useful to begin with)?

For more information:

• National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
• Decision by Third Circuit Court of Appeals
• Petition for writ of certiorari
• Wyeth’s brief in response
• Petitioner’s supplemental brief
• Amicus brief of National Vaccine Information Center

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Posted In: Vaccines , Wyeth

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