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Depakote Maker to pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Criminal and Civil Investigations

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Last week, the Department of Justice Announced a record $1.5 Billion settlement with Abbott Laboratories over their mislabeling of the drug Depakote. "Global Health Care Company Abbott Laboratories Inc. has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve its criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s unlawful promotion of the prescription drug Depakote for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Justice Department announced today.  The resolution – the second largest payment by a drug company – includes a criminal … [Read more...]

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Injured by a Doctor? You’ll likely deal with the secretive Medical Board instead of open court

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Fox 4 in Dallas did a great story on the Texas Medical Board and their contribution to physician discipline since tort reform in 2003.  According to the report serious disciplinary actions are down and the time taken to conduct investigations has risen.  Further, Doctor confidentiality and secrecy is maintained until a final disciplinary action is completed, leaving patients unaware of allegations of malpractice by doctors. Check the Fox 4 page for a video.  Some of the images are graphic and the stories are truly tragic.  Its a shame our state has fallen so far in protecting patient … [Read more...]

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Tort Reform has not Increased the Number of Doctors in Texas

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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A new study by  David A. Hyman, Charles Silver, and Bernard Black shows that Texas Tort Reform measures have not increased the number of doctors in Texas since 2003. "Does state tort reform affect physician supply? Tort reformers certainly believe so. Before Texas adopted tort reform in 2003, proponents claimed that physicians were deserting Texas in droves. After tort reform was enacted, proponents claimed there had been a dramatic increase in physicians moving to Texas due to the improved liability climate. We find no evidence to support either claim. Physician supply was not … [Read more...]

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All-Metal Hip Implants Prone to Early Failure, Need to be Removed

April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Great story by NPR on the continuing problems faced by patients who have recieved All-Metal Hip Implants. Implants Need To Be Removed Early by Richard Knox EnlargeRichard Knox/NPRYoung-min Kwon of Massachusetts General Hospital holds the metal-alloy ball of Susy Mansfield's faulty artificial hip joint. The yellowish tissue on top is dead muscle caused by a reaction to the metal debris produced by the defective hip implant. When Susy Mansfield needed a hip replacement in 2009, her orthopedic surgeon chose a relatively new and untested kind of artificial hip made … [Read more...]

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Federal Judge in Texas Upholds Med Mal Damages Cap

April 26, 2012 By 1 Comment

Originally posted at the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/20120327-u.s.-judge-upholds-texas-cap-on-medical-malpractice-awards.ece By MARK CURRIDEN The Texas Lawbook mark.curriden@texaslawbook.net Published: 27 March 2012 08:55 PM A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Texas law limiting noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases to $250,000 is constitutional. The decision, applauded by tort reform advocates and denounced by trial lawyers and victims of medical malpractice, ends a four-year legal battle over … [Read more...]

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DuPuy / J&J Hip Recall Abroad

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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The following article by Mark Hollmer at FierceMedicalDevices.Com reports how the Johnson & Johnson (Dupuy Orthopaedics) hip implant is being treated in courts and by regulatory agencies in the U.K, Australia and New Zealand. Read below. Johnson & Johnson  is facing more bad news over its metal-on-metal artificial hip implant products, this time in New Zealand and Australia. Both countries' regulatory agencies issued a recall of the MITCH TRH hip components made by J&J's Finsbury Orthopaedics unit. In New Zealand, the problem involves a loosening and movement of part of … [Read more...]

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J&J Faces Fines Drug Case

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Arkansas is added to the growing list of states penalizing Johnson & Johnson based on allegations of misrepresentation of effectiveness and/or potential dangers of usage of pharmaceutical designed for the treatment of psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Read about this  in the article by Katie Thomas of The New York Times. A judge in Arkansas ordered Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary to pay more than $1.2 billion in fines on Wednesday, a day after a jury found that the companies had minimized or concealed the dangers associated with an antipsychotic … [Read more...]

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The Risks of Using Generic Drugs

November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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by Sarah Taylor, SpringerLyle ••• In June of 2011, the United States Supreme Court decided an important issue regarding the warning labels on prescription drugs in Pliva, Inc. et al v. Mensing.  Mensing was a prescription drug failure-to-warn-case.  It dealt with prescription drug companies’ failure to put accurate warnings on their drug labels, leading to patients taking dangerous drugs that they otherwise would not have taken. In Mensing, the Court held that name-brand manufacturers of prescription drugs have an obligation, both under the federal regulations and under state … [Read more...]

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Cancer Risk linked to Diabetes Treatment

November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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By Frank Lyle “Actos” is the brand name for a drug (pioglitazone) used to treat adult onset, Type-II diabetes. In June of 2011, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed the public that this drug may increase the risk of bladder cancer. The FDA required new warnings to be placed on the medication’s label sold under the names Actos, Actoplus Met and Duetact. The drug has already been pulled off the market in France and Germany. It has been estimated that more than 2 million patients filled prescriptions for the drug between January 2010 and October 2010. Our attorneys at … [Read more...]

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No Better Care, Thanks to Tort Reform

October 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Published in The Texas Tribune by guest columnist, Charles M. Silver In 2006, Dr. Howard Marcus wrote that Texas’ 2003 tort reform statute sparked an “amazing turnaround” in which doctors came to Texas in droves, instead of leaving the state as they had before. He was doubly wrong. Texas neither lost doctors before 2003 nor gained them especially quickly in subsequent years. In fact, according to statistics published by the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS), the supply of active, direct patient care (DPC) doctors per capita grew faster from 1996 to 2002 than at … [Read more...]

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