- War on painkillers finds new casualty in ailing veterans [Washington Post, Brian Doherty]
- “Woman says ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ lube doesn’t deliver, should be registered with FDA” [Legal NewsLine]
- “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Twisted Anti-Vaxx History” [Russell Saunders, Daily Beast back in July]
- Using antitrust law, New York seeks to force maker to go on producing older formulation of drug [Ilya Shapiro on Cato brief in Second Circuit] Courts have mostly rejected claims of a duty to supply grounded in obligation to patients [James Beck, Drug & Device Law]
- “Patients see [biotech] startups and hope for a cure. Too many lawyers see them and hope for a payday.” [Standish M. Fleming, WSJ]
- Argument that policymakers undervalue pharmaceutical aids to heroin rehabilitation [Jason Cherkis]
- After suing the obvious defendants in New England Compounding Pharmacy contamination case, lawyers started in on the less obvious [Drug and Device Law, background on regulation-spurred rise of compounding pharmacies]
Archive for 2015
Federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee updates guidelines
571 pages of urgings from the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, so much to disagree with [Elizabeth Harrington, Washington Free Beacon (obesity “interventionists” at workplaces, initiatives to limit advertising and time spent looking at screens); Glenn Lammi; Julie Gunlock; Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger, Cato (environmental impacts of food production)]
More: “Strategies are needed to encourage the U.S. population to drink water when they are thirsty.” [from the report, quoted approvingly (naturally) by NYT’s Mark Bittman, via James Taranto] And Baylen Linnekin: “Consumers can also have their say through April 8. Open your mouth before the DGAC shuts it for you.”
DOJ closes FCPA investigation of drugmaker without filing charges
And it only took 11 years [WSJ] Related: never mind what DOJ’s criminal fraud chief wrote, says Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, we’ll tighten screws further on FCPA [David Baumann]
February 27 roundup
- Yes: “Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered?” [New York Times “Room for Debate”]
- “New police radars can ‘see’ inside homes” [Gannett]
- “‘Shopping cart’ patent beaten by Newegg comes back to court, loses again” [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]
- “Utah woman can sue herself over fatal car accident, ruling says” [Salt Lake Tribune, Lowering the Bar]
- “Large Product Liability Awards Made Comeback in 2014” [Margaret Cronin Fisk, Bloomberg]
- New York assembly ex-speaker Silver indicted; charges reduced from five to three [Reuters]
- “Your fruit may be patented.” [Dan Lewis, Now I Know]
Update: suit claiming pancake credit falls flat
Finally, some files released in John Geer case
Fairfax County, Va. prosecutor blasts police and county stonewalling on the shooting of a homeowner. Curious that the story, in the national media’s own backyard, still hasn’t gone national [Tom Jackman, Washington Post, earlier]
SCOTUS: fish not “documents” or “records” under Dodd-Frank
Ilya Shapiro comments [link fixed now] on the Supreme Court’s ruling this morning in Yates v. United States that the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting law’s prohibition on evasive destruction of “tangible objects” cannot be used to prosecute a fisherman who discarded undersized grouper in hopes of avoiding enforcement. “How does one make a false entry on a fish?” asked Justice Samuel Alito in a concurrence, while dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, citing Dr. Seuss’s “One Fish Two Fish,” disagreed with the prevailing justices’ view that the statute’s prohibition on destruction of “tangible objects” should be read in conjunction with references elsewhere in its text to files and information. [David Lat/Above the Law; ABA Journal] Earlier here.
School bake sales defended in Virginia
S’more local autonomy that way: despite federal pressure in the other direction Virginia lawmakers are moving to enable more school bake sales [Laura Vozzella, Washington Post] Columnist Petula Dvorak finds the debate “ridiculous”: “The classic school bake sale to raise cash for sports equipment, class trips or charitable causes is actually an essential part of a curriculum,” teaching lessons of “entrepreneurship, independence, self-reliance, creation of a product.” Earlier on school bake sales here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
Free speech roundup
- “Victory for ‘Caveman’ Blogger in Free Speech Fight – the right to give advice about what to eat” [Institute for Justice, earlier]
- “Is an academic discussion of free speech potentially traumatic?” Given campus trends, it might soon be [Wendy Kaminer]
- Logic of rejecting heckler’s veto points likewise to rejecting its savage cousin, terrorists’ veto [Ronald Collins]
- Someone tried to yank a Minnesota urbanist’s engineering license because of things he wrote on his blog. It didn’t work [Strong Towns; compare first roundup item]
- Departing NPR ombudsman would take free speech law back to ’50s, and that means 1850s not 1950s [Volokh, earlier]
- The last time I saw Paris, it was making a fool of itself in litigation [Mediaite, Huffington Post, earlier on city’s threats to sue Fox]
- Argentina: state uses control over soccer broadcasts to beam propaganda denouncing opposition [David Kopel] “Dissenting voices silenced in Pakistan’s war of the web” [Jon Boone, Guardian]
ADA: Service dog vs. cabbie’s dog-phobia
“The law requires cab drivers to allow service dogs. A cabbie has dog phobia. Who wins under the ADA? (Hint: Woof.)” [Daniel Schwartz, Connecticut Employment Law Blog]