- After malpractice caps, doctors ordered fewer invasive tests to diagnose heart attacks [Elizabeth Cooney, Stat]
- Product liability defense lawyer manages to survive peremptory challenge and make it onto a jury for a med-mal case, and here are his observations [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law]
- “How Big Government Backed Bad Science and Made Americans Fat” [Reason interview with Nina Teicholz]
- Suits against blood thinner Xarelto have done poorly. Can plaintiff’s lawyers keep plugging away till they get wins? [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine]
- “Pharmacy Benefit Managers Are Not the Cause of High Prescription Drug Prices” [Ike Brannon]
- Advice for physicians: “5 ways to live through medical malpractice lawsuits” [Stacia Dearmin, KevinMD]
Posts Tagged ‘pharmaceuticals’
Medical roundup
- Wrong on many other issues, the American Medical Association is right to resist an artificial 3-day limit on opiate prescriptions [Jeffrey Singer, Cato; Jacob Sullum]
- “Does Ride-Sharing Substitute for Ambulances?” [Leon S. Moskatel and David J. G. Slusky, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy No. 114]
- Fourth Circuit tosses Maryland law banning “price gouging” of “essential” generic drugs, finding that state violates Dormant Commerce Clause by presuming to control transactions entirely outside its boundaries [Zack Buck, Bill of Health; Stephen McConnell, Drug and Device Law]
- President Trump signs “right to try” legislation expanding right of terminally ill patients to enter unapproved therapies; squaring this with existing FDA regulation may present knotty problems [Michael Cannon, Cato; Michael Maharrey (“In fact, victories in 40 state legislatures preceded Trump’s signing ceremony”); earlier here, here, and at Cato Unbound last year] More cautions from Jim Beck on liability angle [Drug and Device Law]
- Florida, departing from other states’ practice, caps its outside lawyers’ recovery at $50 million: “Latest Wave Of State Opioid Lawsuits Shows Diverging Strategies And Lawyer Pay Scales” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- In medical innovation, “equality is a mediocre goal. Aim for progress.” [Tyler Cowen]
On filling dicey prescriptions, sued if you do…
“Back in 2015, two cases were decided within days of each other that allowed claims to go forward suggesting that a pharmacy could be potentially liable for both filling suspect prescriptions (see here) and for not filling suspect prescriptions (see here). Hence ‘damned if you do (question a prescription) and damned if you don’t.'” A key element on one side: pharmacies that refuse to fill prescriptions that they believe show red flags are apt to explain themselves to customers, and those explanations can expose them to defamation actions filed by the doctors who wrote the scripts. [Michelle Yeary, Drug and Device Law]
Medical roundup
- “Trump Joins Campaign To Force Big Pharma To Pay for Opioid Crisis” [Ira Stoll] “Records show all-out, unsolicited attorney scramble to sign up Texas counties for opioid litigation” [David Yates, Southeast Texas Record] “Plaintiff Lawyers See Nationwide Settlement As Only End For Opioid Lawsuits” [Daniel Fisher, LNL/Forbes] “Leading Opioid Litigation Firm Becomes a Top Donor to McCaskill Leading Up to Report’s Release” [Ethan Stoetzer, Inside Sources]
- NYT columnist David Leonhardt pens column urging cutting back on sweets as a political gesture against “attempts to profit off your body,” and others push back [Ira Stoll; Tamar Haspel, citing this 2016 piece on how the science is more complicated]
- “Study: Medical Expenses Cause Close to 4% of Personal Bankruptcies—not 60%” [Michael Cannon, Cato; earlier here, etc., related here]
- Genetic engineering of animal life: “How the FDA Virtually Destroyed an Entire Sector of Biotechnology” [John Cohrssen and Henry Miller, Cato “Regulation”]
- “Very cheap (tobacco) products should no longer be available.” Why should you get to decide that for other people? [John Stossel, Reason]
- Lawyer ads scare patients out of taking needed medication [download Cary Silverman, U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform via John O’Brien, Forbes]
Medical roundup
- “The dominant narrative about pain treatment being a major pathway to addiction is wrong, [and] an agenda heavily weighted toward pill control is not enough.” [Sally Satel on origins of opioid crisis]
- The press gets it wrong: “A Young Mother Died Because Her Flu Meds Were Too Expensive – Or Did She?” [Josh Bloom, ACSH]
- New research brief: tort reform could have effects in both directions on innovation [Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo, Cato]
- Appalling: editor of The Lancet extols Marx as a guide to understanding medical science [Theodore Dalrymple, Law and Liberty]
- “We harbor a suspicion that half the drug/device tort cases we encounter are really medical malpractice cases in search of a deeper pocket” [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law Blog]
- Should the Food and Drug Administration concern itself with the effect of its decisions on drug prices? [David Hyman and William Kovacic, Regulation mag]
Pharmaceutical roundup
- “Addicts Use Imodium to Help With Detox. That’s a Terrible Reason for the FDA to Make It Harder to Get” [Mike Riggs, Reason] Expect runs: “Does anyone see the humor/irony here? A diarrhea medicine package that’s hard to open?” [Josh Bloom, ACSH]
- “The Return of Drug Reimportation?” [Roger Pilon, Cato; more thoughts from David R. Henderson]
- California Supreme Court rules research drugmakers legally responsible “for harm caused by defective warnings in labels on generic versions of their products” [T.H. v. Novartis; Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, Steven Boranian (“awful”), Jim Beck]
- “Abuse-Deterrent Opioids and the Law of Unintended Consequences” [Jeffrey Singer, Cato Policy Analysis]
- Should the FDA approve Metformin for possible anti-aging effects? [Alex Tabarrok]
- “FDA Proposes to Delay Off-Label “Intended Use” Rule” [Stephen McConnell]
Liability roundup
- Company that advances money to claimants against New York City also donates generously to New York politicos [Shawn Cohen, Julia Marsh, Rich Calder and Bruce Golding, New York Post and followup (“LawCash execs showering Schneiderman with campaign contributions”), as well as editorial and followup]
- Jesner v. Arab Bank (whether corporations are exposed to liability under Alien Tort Statute) argued at Supreme Court [John Bellinger and Andy Wang, Lawfare; Anthony J. Bellia and Bradford R. Clark, Lawfare; Just Security symposium; Federalist Society teleforum with William Casto and Samuel Estreicher]
- For defendants in pending patent litigation, T.C. Heartland decision on patent venue may not offer a get-out-of-Texas card [Jeffri A. Kaminski, WLF]
- Top ten class action related developments of 2017 [Paul Karlsgodt; plus Andrew Trask on the class action issues of ascertainability and Spokeo standing in 2017]. And Jim Beck offers a defense perspective on most and least helpful court decisions of the year for pharmaceutical and medical device makers;
- Missed this from 2014: how tort law creates pressures (before any dispute arises) to intrude on privacy [Eugene Volokh, Columbia Law Review]
- “Alabama SC: Settlement schedule violates due process rights, class members deserve more information” [Jessica Karmasek, Legal NewsLine; MedPartners securities action]
Medical roundup
- “Survey: Most Docs Sued for Malpractice” [John Commins, Health Leader on Medscape survey] “The Missing Link in Lavern’s Law” (New York) [Peter A. Kolbert and Andrew S. Kaufman, New York Law Journal]
- Prescription spirits: why many physicians prospered so mightily during Prohibition [Paula Mejia, Atlas Obscura]
- Third Circuit greenlights consumer financial injury class action claiming eyedrop container dispenses eyedrops that are too big [Beck and McConnell on Alcon suit; see also earlier Posner on Allergan case]
- AI in health care, spot the legal issues: “For the First Time, a Robot Passed a Medical Licensing Exam” [in China; Dom Galeon, Futurism]
- “Why FDA regulations limiting e-cigarette marketing may cost lives and violate the Constitution” [Jonathan Adler; related, Jacob Sullum, earlier here, etc.] Anti-vaping crusade represents broader scandal of public health [John Tierney, City Journal]
- Off-label prescribing offers a window on a world with much less FDA regulation, and overall it’s an attractive one [Alex Tabarrok]
“Why a Lot of Important Health Research Is Not Being Done”
“Lawsuits have an intimidating effect on an already difficult enterprise.” [Aaron E. Carroll, New York Times “Upshot”, citing suit against Harvard’s Pieter Cohen over his critical work on nutritional supplements and a new JAMA Internal Medicine article by Nicolas Bagley, Carroll, and Cohen]
Medical roundup
- In welcome reversal of Obama-era ban, FDA will once more permit direct-to-consumer genetic testing [Meghana Keshavan/STAT News, FDA press release]
- Will California law hold a pharmaceutical maker liable — in perpetuity — for a drug that it did not make and did not sell? [Steven Boranian/Drug & Device Law, PLF on T.H. v. Novartis]
- Litigation funding group chases clients in hip replacement litigation [PR Newswire]
- ACA penalizes hospitals for high Medicare readmission rates, but new study links that policy to higher mortality for heart failure patients [Arnold Kling, Ankur Gupta et al., JAMA Cardiology, Cristina Boccuti and Giselle Casillas, Kaiser Family Foundation]
- Litigation tourism model that has done well for plaintiff’s bar now circling drain after Supreme Court’s Bauman, Bristol-Myers Squibb decisions [Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law, more, yet more; related on West Virginia, and from Michelle Yeary on choice of law and forum non conveniens]
- “FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb Goes to Bat For Evidence-Based Opioid Policies” [Mike Riggs, Reason] “Abuse-Deterrent Opioids Cross an Ethical Line” [Jeffrey Singer, Orange County Register]