- UK libel law still casting a chill on free speech around the world [Floyd Abrams, Index on Censorship via Ken at Popehat, Kirk Hartley]
- Much talked about Ramesh Ponnuru op-ed on Constitution and government consideration of race [NYT]
- “EFF Busts Bogus Internet Subdomain Patent” [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
- Why you can’t get low-cost health insurance, part LXVII: legal pressure on insurers to cover behavioral autism treatment [NLJ, Detroit Free Press]
- New Jersey disbars reparations lawyer Ed Fagan, New York having already done so [Black Star News, JTA, Newark Star-Ledger, NJLJ]
- Author Wendell Berry: force NAIS animal-tagging on every small farmer, and you’ll have to call the cops on me [Food Renegade; more on NAIS and small producers, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund; earlier here, etc.]
- Indiana enacts what Gov. Mitch Daniels calls nation’s strongest law protecting teachers from lawsuits [WANE, WTHR]
- Town of Kenner, La. says it’s learned its lesson from being sued and will ticket drunken bicyclists even if they’re badly hurt in accidents [nine years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
autism,
free speech,
Indiana,
insurance,
patent quality,
school discipline,
United Kingdom
- Souter’s middle-of-the-road views on litigation didn’t fit conventional patterns [Copland, PoL]
- Champerty and maintenance watch: new fund invests in commercial litigation for a share of the payouts [Fortune mag via Zywicki]
- Report: distributor of “Religulous” film “has served a written settlement proposal” to preacher depicted onscreen [OnPoint News, earlier]
- U.K.: “Homeowner Suit May Stop Village Cricket” [Telegraph via Never Yet Melted]
- Overlawyered sparks a discussion across usual lines on EMTALA, the federal law on emergency medicine [Kennerly]
- Federal Circuit: think twice before proceeding with frivolous appeals [David Bennett, Law.com]
- Father-son duo who have served as key expert witnesses in litigation alleging autism-vaccine link push risky and questionable therapy for the condition [Chicago Tribune and second article and PDF graphic via Orac; Kathleen Seidel]. Waste and harm that go on in the name of treating autism should give pause to many sides in health care debate [Tyler Cowen]
- One “deadbeat dad’s” story [Amy Alkon]. Forthcoming Lifetime reality show sounds like it will showcase harassment of fathers in child support arrears [Fathers and Families via Instapundit]
Tagged as:
autism,
champerty,
child support,
EMTALA,
fathers,
movies film and videos,
United Kingdom,
vaccine
- At Reason “Hit and Run”, Damon Root deems a certain website “indispensable” [accolades file]
- Montgomery Blair Sibley, colorful lawyer for the “D.C. Madam” and a figure much covered on this site, has new book out [Doyle/McClatchy]
- Although Indian tribal litigators attacked it as “disparaging”, the Washington Redskins football team can keep its trademark, for now at least. “My ancestors were both Vikings and Cowboys. Do I have a course of action?” [Volokh comments]
- “Is Patent Infringement Litigation Up or Down?” [Frankel, The American Lawyer]
- Maryland high court dismisses autism-mercury lawsuit [Seidel, Krauss @ Point of Law]
- Chrysler dealers are lawyering up against the prospect of being cast off [WSJ Law Blog]
- “Should doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines be offered liability protection?” [KevinMD]
- Obama proposes $1.25 billion to settle black farmers’ long-running bias claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture [AP/Yahoo]
Tagged as:
accolades,
agriculture and farming,
autism,
auto dealership protection laws,
Chrysler,
Montgomery Blair Sibley,
patent litigation,
patent trolls,
vaccines
- The wages of addiction: former basketball star Roy Tarpley settles his $6.5 million ADA lawsuit against NBA and Dallas Mavericks [Randy Galloway, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sports Law Blog]
- One result of litigation-fed “vaccines cause autism” scare: parents turn to dangerous quack treatments [Arthur Allen, Slate; in-depth coverage at Kathleen Seidel's and Orac's sites]
- Julie Hilden on First Circuit “true statements can be defamatory” ruling [FindLaw, earlier here and here]
- More coverage of conviction of Kentucky lawyers for grabbing much of fen-phen settlement [Louisville Courier-Journal, earlier]
- Judge dismisses most counts in lawsuit against Richard Laminack of Texas’s O’Quinn law firm [Texas Lawyer, earlier; FLSA overtime claims remain]
- All but three of the outstanding 9/11 airline suits due to settle for $500 million [AP/NorthJersey.com]
- One needn’t make the Community Reinvestment Act a scapegoat for unrelated credit woes to recognize it as an ill-conceived law [Bank Lawyer's Blog]
- U.K.: Woman who plays classical music to soothe horses told she must pay for public performance license [Telegraph]
Tagged as:
autism,
aviation,
banks,
copyright,
Dallas,
disabled rights,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
September 11,
sports,
vaccines
- “Dog owners in Switzerland will have to pass a test to prove they can control and care for their animal, or risk losing it, the Swiss government said yesterday.” [Daily Telegraph]
- 72-year-old mom visits daughter’s Southport, Ct. home, falls down stairs searching for bathroom at night, sues daughter for lack of night light, law firm boasts of her $2.475 million win on its website [Casper & deToledo, scroll to "Jeremy C. Virgil"]
- Can’t possibly be right: “Every American enjoys a constitutional right to sue any other American in a West Virginia court” [W.V. Record]
- Video contest for best spoof personal injury attorney ads [Sick of Lawsuits; YouTube]
- Good profile of Kathleen Seidel, courageous blogger nemesis of autism/vaccine litigation [Concord Monitor*, Orac]. Plus: all three White House hopefuls now pander to anti-vaxers, Dems having matched McCain [Orac]
- One dollar for every defamed Chinese person amounts to a mighty big lawsuit demand against CNN anchor Jack Cafferty [NYDN link now dead; Independent (U.K.)]
- Hapless Ben Stein whipped up one side of the street [Salmon on financial regulation] and down the other [Derbyshire on creationism]
- If only Weimar Germany had Canada-style hate-speech laws to prevent the rise of — wait, you mean they did? [Steyn/Maclean's] Plus: unlawful in Alberta to expose a person to contempt based on his “source of income” [Levant quoting sec. 3 (1)(b) of Human Rights Law]
- Hey, these coupon settlements are giving all of us class action lawyers a bad name [Leviant/The Complex Litigator]
- Because patent law is bad enough all by itself? D.C. Circuit tosses out FTC’s antitrust ruling against Rambus [GrokLaw; earlier]
- “The fell attorney prowls for prey” — who wrote that line, and about which city? [four years ago on Overlawyered]
*Okay, one flaw in the profile: If Prof. Irving Gottesman compares Seidel to Erin Brockovich he probably doesn’t know much about Brockovich.
Tagged as:
antitrust,
asbestos,
autism,
Barack Obama,
Ben Stein,
coupon settlements,
Erin Brockovich,
forum shopping,
free speech in Canada,
Germany,
hate speech,
jackpot justice,
John McCain,
Kathleen Seidel subpoena,
libel slander and defamation,
Mark Steyn,
nanny state,
parody,
roundups,
Switzerland,
vaccines,
West Virginia
Ronald Bailey at Reason’s blog Hit & Run discusses a recent article by Stephanie Desmon in the Baltimore Sun on the topic. Ron rightly mentions the end result of all the fuss over thimerosal in vaccines: worried parents, unvaccinated kids and more expensive vaccines. As I mentioned earlier this week, a recent study in the Archives of General Psychiatry also cast doubt on the supposed link.
Tagged as:
autism,
Baltimore,
medical,
vaccines
That’s the title of this commentary in the latest issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. The author, Dr. Eric Fombonne of Montreal Children’s Hospital, provides his two cents regarding a new study in the same issue: Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System: Mercury in Retrograde. In sum, as Dr. Frombonne concludes:
The study by Schechter and Grether in this issue of the Archives provides additional evidence of the lack of association between thimerosal exposure and the risk of autism in the US population. Using an ecologic design and data from the California Department of Developmental Services, the authors showed that the prevalence rate of autism increased continuously during the study period even after the discontinuation of the use of thimerosal in US vaccines in 2001. Had there been any risk association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, the rate of autism should have decreased in young children between 2004 and 2007. Instead, the rate increase did not attenuate, indicating that thimerosal exposure bears no relationship to the risk of autism.
Whatever the science says, there’s at least three reasons why people continue to believe in a vaccine-autism link. Yet like the Vioxx litigation, science only gets you so far once litigation is introduced to the mix.
Tagged as:
autism,
hospitals,
vaccines
