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GlaxoSmithKline is close to wrapping up another 1,000 Avandia liability suits. GSK has already agreed to pay some $700 million to settle about 12,000 lawsuits over the diabetes drug, Bloomberg's sources say. The company has set aside more than $6 billion to cover liabilities associated with Avandia and other drugs, including the antidepressant Paxil. Two Avandia cases have been set for trial in November and another for March 2012. Meanwhile, the settlement talks are ongoing in state and federal suits. Some 5,300 state-court cases are pending, Bloomberg says, including those that are on the verge of settlement.
Tracy Staton, Fierce Pharma
DougSaunders: "Journalist is a word like runner, not like engineer. Any citizen who chronicles surroundings is a journalist." If you swim you're a swimmer. If you keep a journal you're a journalist. That's why fights over who's a journalist or not are pointless. However, there is a line that is not pointless: Are you an insider or a user? Insiders get access to execs for interviews and background info. Leaks and gossip. Vendor sports. Early versions of products. Embargoed news. Extra oomph on social networks. Favors that will be curtailed or withdrawn if you get too close to telling truths they don't want told. All the people participating in the "journalist or not" debate are insiders. They are all compromised. Whether or not they disclose some of these conflicts, none of them disclose the ones that are central to what they will and will not say.
Dave Viner, Scripting News
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Paul Kalina, The Sydney Morning Herald
The Wall Street Journal is trying to make a play for whistleblowers with its very own Wikileaks clone, SafeHouse. But SafeHouse is the opposite of safe, thanks to basic security flaws and fine print that lets the Journal rat on leakers. So, go ahead and upload your explosive documents to SafeHouse. But if they publish a scoop based on your material and someone gets mad, they can sell you out to anyone for any reason, including the insanely broad one of safeguarding "the interests of others." (And Rupert Murdoch, who controls the paper, sure has a lot of interests!)
Adrian Chen, The Gawker
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Andy Greenberg, Forbes
There is a craven disconnect between the eagerness of leading editors to exploit the important news revealed by WikiLeaks and their efforts to distance themselves from both the courageous website and Bradley Manning, the alleged source of documents posted there. Why, indeed, is Manning the one behind bars and not the government officials who kept hidden unpleasant truths about this nation’s policies that the public has a right to know? And why do leaders of our constitutionally protected free press now seek to distance themselves from news sources that have performed a great public service? A service documented by the fact, as tallied by The Atlantic magazine, that more than half of the issues of The New York Times this year have carried stories that relied on WikiLeaks’ disclosures. It is high time that the media that confirmed the value of the WikiLeaks information defended the rights of the whistle-blowers who by challenging the code of off icial secrecy let the public in on the real story.
Robert Schee, Columbia Daily Tribune
Nearly one third of lawyers in Sweden, including best-selling author and lawyer Jens Lapidus, believe that criticism directed at the country's legal system by WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange is warranted, according to a new survey. According to Lapidus and Åkermark, both of whom are partners in the same law firm as Assange's Swedish attorney Björn Hurtig, the WikiLeaks' founder is justified in taking issue with several aspects of the Swedish criminal justice system. Writing in DN, the two lawyers explain that Assange is warranted in questioning Sweden's rules on remanding suspects in custody, which often prevent defence attorneys from having a chance to review material used as the basis for remand decisions until minutes before prosecutors present the evidence to a judge. "We're of the opinion that remand in Sweden is used in a way that many other states governed by the rule of law would find unfamiliar," they write. Speaking to Legally Yours, Hurtig said the statistics cited by Lapidus and Åkermark show that "mistrust of our legal system is greater than many believe".
The Local, Sweden's News In English
This morning, 138 peaceful protesters were scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court. They were charged with aggravated trespass after occupying Fortnum & Mason on 26 March in order to voice their opposition to corporate tax avoidance alongside activist group UKUncut. Most of the cases will now be adjourned until September, and many may be quietly dropped. That will not stop hundreds from gathering for a rally outside the court to defend this peaceful, media-friendly activist group. Many believe that the point of the charges was never to lock up criminals, but to make an example of UKUncut by frightening and inconveniencing its members as much as possible. Known dissidents have been seized from their homes and arrested, and community centres have been raided for signs of subversion. The signal to the silent majority who oppose this Government's spending plans is clear: think twice before speaking out. If you take action to defend public s ervices, you risk being punished. UKUncut seem to have been singled out for police harassment. Far fewer arrests were made of those who committed unrelated acts of violent property damage on the day of the anti-cuts protest, whereas all I saw damaged inside Fortnum & Mason's was a single chocolate rabbit.
Laurie Penny, The Independent
As what is beginning to look more and more like a war on claimants hots up, last month saw the introduction of a ‘forced labour’ scheme. Many thousands of claimants will be obliged to work for up to 30 hours a week for a month for no wage whatsoever. There is no limit to the number of times claimants can be forced onto the scheme. Those who fail to comply will lose their benefits for 13 weeks for a first offence and 26 weeks for a second offence. The scheme is aimed at JSA claimants, but with so many people likely to fail the new work capability assessment, that may well include thousands of sick and disabled claimants who are deemed not to be trying hard enough to move into work. The propaganda war is also becoming more vicious and ill-informed as the DWP feeds easy to misinterpret figures to the press and then looks the other way as hate-provoking misinformation fills the tabloids. For the claimants on the front-line, there&rsquo ;s s also the shocking news of the lack of disabled access at many Atos medical centres, which most claimants are obliged to attend for their work capability assessment. An astonishing one in five centres don’t have disabled access and Atos lists just one dedicated disabled parking space for the use of around a million claimants a year.
Steve Donnison, Benefits & Work
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