Monday, 9 January 2012
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Pfizer Inc. must pay more than $45 million in damages to two women who blamed the company’s menopause drugs for their breast cancers, an appeals court ruled. Connie Barton and Donna Kendall, two Illinois women who sued Pfizer units Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn over their menopause medications, deserved both compensatory and punitive damages over the companies’ handling of the drugs, a panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. At one point, Pfizer and its units faced more than 10,000 lawsuits over the medications. Wyeth’s sales of its Prempro and Premarin medicines, which are still on the market, exceeded $2 billion before the release of the Women’s Health Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The court ru led jurors properly found that Wyeth and Upjohn should be held liable for breast cancers tied to their menopause drugs and both properly faced punitive damage awards over their handling of the medication.
Jef Feeley, Bloomberg Businessweek
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Martha Rosenberg, The Epoch Times
A group of parents who claim their children suffered severe birth defects because of Zoloft has filed a lawsuit against the drug's manufacturer. According to the nine-count complaint, the female plaintiffs were all prescribed Zoloft during their pregnancies, despite the alleged risks posed to their unborn children. The mothers claim their babies were all born with major medical defects, including heart damage. The parents cite multiple published medical studies that show antidepressants like Zoloft double the risk of heart defects in unborn children. Based on those studies, the parents say Pfizer had to have known the potential dangers posed by the drug Zoloft. They also allege Zoloft was defectively designed and inadequately tested. The parents say the antidepressant medication lacked the proper warnings alerting patients to possible birth defects associated with its use during pregnancy. They accuse the drug manufacturer of negligence, fraud, misrepres entation and a breach of implied warranties. They also allege the company violated Consumer Protection Laws. The parents are asking for actual and compensatory damages along with a disgorgement of profits, interest and court costs.
Andrea Dearden, The Record, St Claire County
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Martha Rosenberg, The Epoch Times
ALBANY, N.Y. — Following fatal shootings in two New York pharmacy robberies, a U.S. senator is warning that a new batch of "super painkillers" now under review could force repeats of recent violent robberies that left six people dead. "It's tremendously concerning that at the same time policymakers and law enforcement professionals are waging a war on the growing prescription drug crisis, new super-drugs could well be on their way, flooding the market," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The FDA needs to grab the reins and slow down the stampede to introduce these powerful narcotics." A message seeking comment from the Food and Drug Administration was not immediately returned Friday. A New Year's Eve robbery at a Long Island pharmacy netted prescription painkillers and cash and left the robber and a federal agent dead. In June, four died in another Long Island pharmacy robbery in which 11,000 hydrocodone pills were stol en.
Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal
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RT
A watchdog that regulates GPs was blasted last night for spending £280,000 a year on private medical insurance. The General Medical Council - which has the power to ban surgeons and GPs from working - splashes out £280,000 annually to cover almost 500 of its staff. The regulator, which sets training standards for medics, receives most of its funding from doctors’ fees. The GMC said its spending on private medical insurance is “kept under regular review” and will be examined by its resources committee later this year. However, grassroots family doctors questioned the payments. Dr Dermot Ryan, a GP in Loughborough, Leicestershire, said: “I wonder how the GMC can justify this expense. The majority of membership of the GMC is now made up of people that are not doctors, who have little comprehension of medicine or the difficulty in providing medical services. They seem to be going down the Government gravy train of awarding themselves luxuries that the people who provide their salaries can’t afford themselves. I’m looking forward to the day when we have a vote of no confidence in the GMC.” The issue was also flagged up on the social networking site Twitter by Dr Jonathan Tomlinson, a GP in Hackney, east London, and Dr Phil Hammond, a medical columnist and GP in Bristol. Dr Hammond said: “Why does the GMC give its staff private medical cover? Is the NHS that bad? Are muggins doctors paying for it? Yes.”
Lachlan Mackinnon, The Mirror
One in four girls getting the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer falsely believes it cuts the risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases. The startling finding, published in Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, raises fears the vaccine is encouraging girls to abandon safe sex. Neither of the vaccines [Gardasil and Cervarix] can prevent other sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea or HIV. But in the study of 339 girls, who had an average age of 17, a significant group believed the HPV vaccine reduced their risk of contracting such diseases. Nearly 24 per cent of the girls, aged between 13 and 21, believed they were less at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases after the vaccine.
Daily Mail Reporter, Daily Mail
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Lucija Tomljenovic & Christopher A. Shaw, Annals of Medicine
Brigid O'Connell, Sunday Herald
Vera Hassner Sharav, AHRP
Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News
Press Release, One More Girl
Today, according to various estimates, between four and
eight percent of American kids have some kind of food allergy.
If you have a college degree, you -- and your kids -- may have an elevated risk of developing food allergies. Being an immigrant, on the other hand, may lower your family's risk. One explanation could be that people with more schooling may, in certain places, be more likely to visit doctors or they might have followed overly strict guidelines about when to introduce foods to their babies -- a strategy that can backfire. A theory called the hygiene hypothesis, for example, proposes that cleaner, less crowded households that regularly use antibiotics and vaccines end up with lower rates of exposure to bacteria and other pathogens. Our immune systems, in turn, may fail to get enough practice fending off legitimate infections, making them more likely to overreact to benign triggers, like food.
Discovery News
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M. Ben-Shoshan et al, Journal of Allergy
Daniel Ellsberg / ellsberg.net
For our first Truthdigger instalment of 2012, we salute Daniel Ellsberg, who has taken a page from his experience with the Pentagon Papers and is still busy serving up a bracing dose of truth to power, most recently with his support of accused WikiLeaker Bradley Manning. It’s not like Ellsberg ever hung it up after passing the explosive 7,000-page work of revelations about the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam to the major American news media 40 years ago. Thus, it’s in keeping with his life’s ongoing legacy that Ellsberg would turn up again in the headlines in relation to Pvt. Bradley Manning, who also risked more than his own career to let the world in on some of America’s less lofty activities on the global stage. Ellsberg paid a visit late last month to the military courtroom at Fort Meade, Md., where Manning’s pretrial hearing was held, and on Friday, he told Truthdig’s Kasia Anderson about the parallels he sees between his story and Manning’s and about their brief, if interrupted, interaction.
Kasia Anderson, Truthdigger
(Pic courtesy of One Click)
More than 30 benefits claimants have died while appealing against a judgment that they were fit to work, official figures show, leading to accusations the system is in chaos. Tribunal centres across the UK, including in Scotland, are also being forced to hold Saturday sittings to deal with disputed cases, politicians have been told. Last night Labour called on the Tory-LibDem Coalition at Westminster to get a grip on the situation before it spirals "completely out of control". Almost four in 10 cases are currently overturned on appeal, a proportion campaigners say is unacceptable. Two Scots who died while waiting to challenge their decision had died of the conditions that led them to apply for Incapacity Benefit in the first place. Atos, a French firm, is being paid £100 million a year by the Government as it seeks to cut the cost of incapacity benefit. But the company has faced growing criticism over its handling of the cases. Tom Greatre x MP warned the system was in chaos.
The Herald, Scotland
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Disability Alliance
Information Release, Black Triangle Campaign
Al Jazeera, The Stream
IndyMedia UK
Will Stone, Morning Star
Peter Cotterill, Liberal Conspiracy
Patrick Butler, The Guardian
Letters, The Guardian
London Mayor, Boris Johnson
(Caption & pic courtesy of One Click)
London Mayor Boris Johnson is just one of thousands of individuals and organisations whose overwhelming opposition to axing disability living allowance has been grossly misrepresented by the government in an effort to force through the highly controversial change. This is the claim made by an ad hoc group of disabled campaigners in a highly detailed report ‘Responsible reform’ released today. If true it could lead to legal challenges to the welfare reform bill and to questions as to whether conservative ministers deliberately misled parliament. The authors of the report are calling for a pause of at least six months before legislation introducing PIP is voted on, in order to allow the views of disabled people to be properly taken into account. They are also calling for help from Benefits and Work readers. Disabled campaigners claim that, again and again, throughout their consultation response, the government misrepresents the strength of opposition to their plans and seeks to mislead MPs and peers.
Steve Donnison, Benefits and Work
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Dr S J Campbell BSc (Hons) PhD et al, Benefits and Work
Ex-Met chief Sir Paul Stephenson (left) and former anti-terror boss John Yates (right) have signed gagging orders.
Two of Britain’s most senior police officers pocketed substantial pay-offs after resigning over the phone-hacking scandal. Former Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and his colleague John Yates are thought to have received up to £500,000 between them. The cash was handed out after the pair signed gagging orders which bar them from suing the Metropolitan Police or speaking about their treatment. The exact size of the payments, at a time of savage cuts to police budgets, was a closely guarded secret. But speculation was mounting that the total cost to the taxpayer, including fees racked up during weeks of legal wrangling, could be as much as half a million pounds. The pay-offs underline how the scandal plunged the Met leadership into chaos amid a flurry of revelations about their close links to News International. Mr Yates is now preparing to move to Bahrain where he will advise the Government on police reform.
Chris Greenwood, Daily Mail
A former police officer from Bedford has been jailed for 15 months after she used police databases to look up information about criminal activities on behalf of her boyfriend and his friend. Hannah Quince, who was a police officer with the Bedfordshire force, tapped into sensitive data when, in November 2010, her boyfriend Christopher Shri was associated with people suspected of serious criminal offences. A jury last month found her guilty of accessing sensitive information on police computers without a valid policing purpose and conspiracy to commit an act of misconduct in a public office. One Click Note: And this dear friends, once again, is but the tip of the extremely lucrative police data iceberg.
Grantham Journal
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Press Association
The City of London Police was facing fresh questions over its approach to protest groups last night after it emerged that it regularly included them in communiques warning businesses in the City about extremist activity. News that the force had referred to the demonstrators camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral in a single terrorism bulletin was dismissed as a drafting error when it came to light a month ago. Now City of London Police has admitted that it included Occupy London in the “domestic” section of the warning letter on seven separate occasions since the camp sprung up. It was also revealed that anti-cuts group UK Uncut has been mentioned in two of the warning letters, while the union-led demonstrations at the end of last November were included. A spokesman for Occupy London said that the approach would “intimidate” those who wanted to engage in peaceful protest. He said: “The City of London Police does seem very i ntent on labelling peaceful protesters as domestic terrorists and on linking peaceful protest with extremism, which is absolutely ridiculous. We are seeing similar attitudes in America and it is very concerning the position governments and police forces are taking towards voices of dissent."
Kevin Rawlinson, The Independent
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Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy
Russ Baker, Business Insider
All invited to join Occupy London with Labour Lord Maurice Glasman, Conservative MP Steve Baker, representatives of RBS Shareholders Group plus Gordon Kerr of Cobden Partners to debate ethics of executive pay, personal liability and corporate accountability. Hector Sants, CEO of FSA also invited to attend. Occupy London welcomes David Cameron’s rousing words on executive pay but questions his commitment. Tomorrow (Tuesday 10 January), on the day that MPs return to Parliament after the festive break, Occupy London – part of the global movement for social and economic justice – will hold a ‘teach out’ focusing on executive pay and bonuses outside the Financial Services Authority’s headquarters in Canary Wharf. All are invited to meet at 10am on Tuesday outside Canary Wharf tube station.
Information Release, Occupy London
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