Legal Issues

Johnson & Johnson recalls contraceptives

Johnson & Johnson has announced a voluntary recall of millions of oral contraceptive packages, after tests showed that one of the hormones in the pills was being released more slowly than it should.

A story in the Asbury Park Press notes that it’s the latest in a series of about 40 product recalls announced by Johnson & Johnson since 2009.

Among them is the 2010 recall of an all-metal hip implant manufactured ...

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The Public Dangers of Private Confidentiality Provisions and Gag Orders

It is common to find confidentiality provisions in settlement agreements, where a wrongdoer seeks to keep all harmful information from getting out to the public. Confidentiality provisions are often accepted because the risks of passing up a settlement (the proverbial bird in the hand) are too great to warrant being left without any compensation for one’s injuries.

Confidentiality provisions are especially common where a wrongdoer is alleged to have injured multiple victims, because if one person settles, any information they have ...

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More than 70,000 complaints about Mirena IUD

An investigation by WEWS-TV out of Cleveland uncovered more than 70,000 complaints about the Mirena intrauterine device filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 2000.

A number of women have filed lawsuits claiming the company overstated the device’s benefits in its advertising while trying to conceal some potentially dangerous side effects. Those side effects include the possibility that the device will ...

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AMA supports energy drink ban for minors

The American Medical Association has announced its willingness to support a ban on marketing energy drinks to people under the age of 18, Reuters reports.

The report quotes an AMA board member as saying that the “massive and excessive amounts of caffeine” in the drinks may be associated with a number of health issues in young people, including heart problems.

In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it ...

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Diet changes an option for Lipitor users

An ABC News report asks the question of whether America is an “overmedicated nation,” and offers alternatives to some of the most commonly prescribed medications.

Among those medications are the anti-cholesterol drugs known as statins. According to the report, the pharmacies fill more than 45 million prescriptions a year for the statin known as Lipitor alone.

But recent research indicates that statins may carry some health risks. The U.S. Food and Drug ...

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FDA accused of inadequate response to diabetes drugs

An investigation in the medical journal BMJ faults the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its tepid response to reports that diabetes drugs including Byetta and Januvia may be linked to pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer.

Both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency are conducting investigations into that class of drugs, called incretin mimetics, the story says. And both agencies have confirmed that their own analyses show increased reporting or signals ...

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