I posted briefly on the Lauren Stevens acquittal last month, and now I’ve got a longer treatment up at Cato at Liberty:
…U.S. District Court Judge Roger Titus ordered the acquittal of Lauren Stevens, a former in-house lawyer for drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, who had been charged with obstructing a federal investigation. In strong language, Judge Titus said Stevens “should never have been prosecuted” and that allowing the case to go forward to a jury “would be a miscarriage of justice.” …After the stunning dismissal, the U.S. Department of Justice was quite unapologetic, a top official suggesting that its prosecutors intended to do nothing differently in future.
The full post is here. P.S. Scott Greenfield has some additional thoughts that should not be missed.
Tagged as:
FDA,
prosecution
The U.S. Department of Justice falls flat on its face in its unsuccessful prosecution of Lauren Stevens, an in-house lawyer and vice president at drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, on charges of lying to the government and obstructing justice during the company’s response to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation of its marketing. [Main Justice]
Tagged as:
FDA,
prosecution
- “Woman Sues Adidas After Fall She Blames on Sticky Shoes” [Lowering the Bar]
- Texas lawmakers file loser pays proposals [SE Tex Record] Actual scope of proposals hard to discern through funhouse lens of NYT reporting [PoL] Marie Gryphon testimony on loser-pays proposals in Arkansas [Manhattan Institute, related]
- Google awarded patent on changing of logo for special days [Engadget via Coyote]
- “Civil Gideon in Deadbeat Dad Cases Would Be ‘Massive’ Change, Lawyer Tells Justices” [Weiss, ABA Journal, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Amateur-hour crash-fakers in Bronx didn’t reckon on store surveillance camera [NY Post]
- “Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in Cobell Defend $223M Fee Request” [BLT]
- Show of harm not needed: FDA kicks another 500 or so legacy drugs off market, this time in the cold-and-cough area [WaPo]
- “Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Rough Justice Without Due Process” [Andrew Trask, WLF]
Tagged as:
Arkansas,
civil gideon,
crash faking,
FDA,
Google,
loser pays,
patent quality,
product liability,
slip and fall,
Texas,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes
Recent toughening of FDA regulation, particularly over the drug manufacturing process, is said to be a factor. Should this count as surprising? [LATimes]
Tagged as:
FDA,
hospitals,
pharmaceuticals
I’ve got a food policy roundup at Cato that tries to answer such questions as:
* Has FDA’s regulatory zeal finally met its match in the foodie zeal of cheese-makers and -fanciers who are beginning to insist on their right to make and enjoy cheeses similar to those in France, even if they pose a nonzero though tiny bacterial risk?
* How annoying is it that Mark Bittman would stop writing a great food column in the NYT in order to start writing an inevitably wrongheaded politics-of-food column?
* Is Wal-Mart secretly smiling after First Lady Michelle Obama publicly twisted its arm to do various things it was probably considering anyway, along with some things it definitely wanted to do, such as opening more stores in poor urban neighborhoods?
Related: Led by past Overlawyered guest-blogger Baylen Linnekin, Keep Food Legal bills itself as “The first and only nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom.” 11 Points has compiled a list of “11 Foods and Drinks Banned in the United States.” And GetReligion.org has more on the “shadowy community of outlaw Amish and Mennonite dairy farmers” portrayed in several recent press reports.
Tagged as:
FDA,
food safety,
France,
New York Times,
obesity,
small business,
Wal-Mart
Sponsored by Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), it would OK some now-banned health claims about food. “A few years ago, for example, the Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to orchards that had boasted that tart cherries contained antioxidants, anti-inflammatory agents and other beneficial properties…. All such activities, in the FDA’s words, ’cause your products to be drugs.’” [Vincent Carroll, Denver Post]
Tagged as:
advertising,
agriculture and farming,
FDA
“The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (SCA 2010), now before the House of Representatives, is an inappropriate and seriously flawed attempt to make cosmetics safer.” Disregarding considerations of dose and concentration, the bill would require label disclosure of every substance present in an ingredient “at levels above technically feasible detection limits.” Essential oils and herb extracts typically contain 100 or more such substances, some of which, in isolation and at much larger concentrations, would qualify as toxic. And there’s a CPSIA-like requirement that manufacturers test all ingredients before sale. “Most small personal care product businesses will not survive if SCA 2010 passes.” [fragrance specialist Robert Tisserand] The lead sponsors of the proposed Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786) are Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. of CPSIA fame, Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc. [Drug Store News] More: Lela Barker, Cosmetics Design.
Tagged as:
cosmetics,
environment,
FDA,
Jan Schakowsky,
small business
Provenge is in scarce supply: “The shortages stem from Dendreon’s uncertainty about whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would approve the drug.” [Bloomberg via Stoll]
Tagged as:
FDA
- Report: European sunscreens use superior ingredients US regulators haven’t gotten around to approving [NYT]
- Some in Pakistan want Zuckerberg executed for hosting “draw Mohammed” [Freethinker, UK]
- GM fought Clean Air Act? “Sen. Franken’s bad environmental history” [Adler/Volokh]
- Scary McChesneyite plans for federal intervention in media: FTC seems to be listening [Thierer, City Journal] FCC relations with Free Press on the skids? [Mike Riggs, Daily Caller]
- In 1978 Canada Supreme Court judicially imposed cap on noneconomic damages, world doesn’t seem to have ended for Canadian litigants [Wood, PoL]
- “Landlord victorious in Peeps trial” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- Who’ll wind up paying in Chinese drywall litigation? [Risk and Insurance]
- How not to get out of jury duty [Abnormal Use]
Tagged as:
Al Franken,
Canada,
damages,
Facebook,
FDA,
Federal Trade Commission,
jury selection
Following a huge outcry in Louisiana and elsewhere (see Oct. 28; Slashfood, Washington Times, Ryan Young/CEI), the agency will reconsider the rule. The uber-nannyish Center for Science in the Public Interest was dismayed at the delay [BayouBuzz], while the New Orleans publication Gambit, which calls the episode “a glaring example of bureaucratic overkill,” warns that after finishing further study the FDA “could still return with its faulty reasoning.” Nancy Leson at the Seattle Times passes on word from a Northwest shellfish official: “We were told by FDA officials that initially, they were planning to mandate post-harvest treatment of all oysters, and at the last minute they decided to just stick to Gulf oysters — for now.” And ubiquitous food-poisoning lawyer Bill Marler, whose publicity juggernaut rolls on* (recent Seattle Times profile — “I represent poisoned little children against giant corporations”), feels like he’s been wasting a fortune:
…let me make clear that I dumped a lot of “change” into the Democratic change wagon – I have given or raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates over the last several years. My goal was to put people in office that did good public policy. Well, I guess I needed to wake up literally and figuratively. … Now, the FDA runs and hides from the Oyster industry. … Democratic candidates – do not bother calling, this “change” machine is out of order.
*Marketing disclosure for the FTC’s benefit: when I spoke at the recent AEI food safety panel an employee of one of Marler’s journalistic enterprises presented me with one of his promotional t-shirts.
Tagged as:
FDA,
food safety,
FTC endorsement rules,
Louisiana,
New Orleans
