Defective & Dangerous Products | InjuryBoard Cherry Hill

The November 1, 2007 New England Journal of Medicine calls for fuller disclosure of gifts drug companies pay doctors. The article concludes that costs of industry dinners, trips, and other incentives are passed along to their patients in the form of higher drug prices. A bipartisan bill is pending in the Senate called the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. It was introduced by Senators...

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Phenylpropanolamine. Phenylpropanolamine. Phenylpropanolamine. This is the word you must look for on your cold medicines. If it's there, throw the bottle out or take it back for a refund. A study has shown that women have a greater chance of getting a hemorrhagic stroke, which is a bleeding in the brain, in the three day period after they start use of the cold medicine. Women...

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In a stunning announcement, the nation's largest manufacturer of defibrillators, Medtronic, has recalled all 235,000 of them presently inplanted in the United States. All of these patients should immediately contact their doctors. A faulty part has been detected in the Sprint Fidelis model. This is urgent and please spread this news to all of your family and friends who may be affected. ...

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Lead is cropping up everywhere. Toys, paint, and now lipstick. The leading brands of lipstick, including L'Oreal Colour Riche "True Red," L'Oreal Colour Riche "Classic Wine," Cover Girl Incredifull Lipcolor "Maximum Red" and Dior Addict "Positive Red," all contained detectable levels of lead. In all, 61% of all lipstick tested had detectable levels of lead. Manufacturers insist that...

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A United States District Court today refused to grant the Food and Drug Administration's request to delay the turnover of Vioxx related documents. In today's ruling, Judge Faith Hochberg directed that a court appointed mediator become involved in the process of deciding what documents can be turned over the plaintiff, attorney Eric Weinberg. Weinberg, who is involved in the New Jersey...

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The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has announced that Banquet brand frozen chicken and turkey pot pies can cause samonella poisoning. Look for the F-9 code on the boxes for the ones that have the possible contamination. While the FDA and the CDC are doing more to ensure the safety of our food supply, the food manufacturers have to do more on their end to stop this madness. These...

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The United States Attorney in New Jersey announced that he has accepted fines of $311 million from the four largest medical device companies in exchange for not prosecuting them on federal kickback charges. The four companies are Depuy Orthopaedics Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick; Smith & Nephew Inc. of Memphis, Tenn.; Biomet Orthopedics of Warsaw, Ind.; and Zimmer...

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The Topps Company, based in Elizabeth, NJ, recalled 21 million pounds of groud meat. This is another case where contaminated meat caused e coli food poisoning. If you are a victim of food poisioning, these two attorneys specialize in this field: Eric Weinberg of Red Bank, New Jersey and Bill Marler of Seattle, Washington. Everyone is cautioned to cook hamburgers thoroughly and to make...

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), emboldened by the new Drug Safety Law signed by President Bush, is becoming more vocal. In their latest release they have warned parents not to give cold and cough medicines to children. Some of the medicines should not be given to kids under 6 and some for kids under 2. According to the AP, an FDA review of side-effect records filed with the agency...

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In a devasting blow to big drug companies, President Bush today signed into law a new drug safety bill. The bill was passed by the House and Senate, both controlled by Democrats, but it had bi-partisan support. The legislators were upset with the recent string of problems with bad drugs being approved by the FDA. The most recent fiasco was the world-wide withdrawal of the painkiller...

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In a stunning blow to Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) Mayor Bloomberg of New York City and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo jointly sued the drug maker in the New York Supreme Court today over Merck's withdrawn drug, Vioxx. Read the entire press release at the end of this entry. The suit is one of several brought by individual states to recover money the states paid on behalf of Medicaid patients....

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With all of the present concern about what drug company sales reps tell doctors, there was a little known study published on this topic in the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2004: 328:485). In that study, researchers analyzed drug materials given to doctors. They found that only 6% of the materials distributed by the drug companies were supported by scientific evidence. Fortunately, in...

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Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) appeared to win a major victory today when the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that so-called third party payors could not proceed with their claims against Merck via a national class action. However, a closer look at the opinion should send shock waves throughout the financial community. For what the case really said, depite Merck's spin, is that all third...

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The August 16, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contained a study that did not get the media attention it deserved. Studies were done of the amount of money big drug companies spent on "direct to consumer ads" and found the amount increasing each year. The latest year for which data is available was 2005 when $29.9 billion was spent. Total real spending on promotion grew...

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After years of criticism that they were not doing enough about drug safety because of links to the drug companies, the Food and Drug Administration is changing its tune. First, the FDA refused to grant Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) approval of its pain medication Arcoxia because it was too similar to the withdrawn drug Vioxx. This, even though Arcoxia is sold in 63 foreign countries. The...

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