Current Events

According to a U.S. Senate report released this week, Mercedes-Benz and Read more . . .

The FDA has announced it is investigating reports of adverse reactions, including hair loss, hair breakage, balding, itching and rash, associated with the use of WEN by Chas Dean Cleansing Conditioner products.

As of July 7, the agency had received 127 adverse event reports from consumers about the products, which is “the largest number of reports ever associated with any cosmetic hair cleansing product, including cleansing conditioners,” the FDA MedWatch safety alert reported. The agency reported that it also is investigating more than 21,000 complaints reported directly to Chaz Dean Inc. and Guthy Renker LLC that the FDA became aware of during inspections of manufacturing and distribution facilities.

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Last September, U.S. regulators faced a dilemma: whether to allow importation of drug ingredients from a Chinese factory with a history of poor quality controls, or face shortages of treatments for American cancer patients.

Six months earlier, visiting Food and Drug Administration inspectors had uncovered what the agency later called “broad data manipulation” at the factory, located in Taizhou, about 200 miles south of Shanghai. Information about the potency and purity of some product batches had been deleted, making it difficult to investigate a significant increase in customer complaints, the FDA Read more . . .

WASHINGTON —  The Obama administration announced Thursday it will seek to block two giant health care mergers, citing concerns that the deals could drive up health care premiums, undermine innovation and reduce competition.

The Justice Department filed lawsuits challenging Anthem's $48 billion acquisition of Cigna and Aetna's $37 billion takeover of Humana, threatening to put an abrupt stop to the insurance industry's rapid consolidation.

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Nearly 308,000 Chevrolet Impala sedans were recalled Wednesday because potentially faulty wiring could potentially cause air bags not inflating in a crash, according to a filing to the National HIghway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall covers 2009 and 2010 Impalas manufactured between April, 2008, to February, 2010.

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Federal officials will not be thrown off course by the May crash of a partially automated Tesla, a top U.S. road safety official said Wednesday.

The U.S.
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The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that it had approved generic versions of the blockbuster cholesterol-lowering pill Crestor, rejecting a last-ditch and controversial effort by AstraZeneca to stop cheaper competition from reaching pharmacy shelves.

The move should considerably decrease the price of the drug and result in a sharp loss of market share for AstraZeneca. The brand-name drug has a retail price around $260 a month, according to GoodRx.com. With multiple generics now coming onto the market, the price could eventually drop as much as 80 to 90 percent.
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Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz USA and Daimler Vans units and Ferrari NV are among a small group of automakers selling some new vehicles with faulty Takata airbags that will be subject to recalls by the end of 2018, a U.S. Senate report said on Wednesday.

The vehicles are legal to sell since the U.S.
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GlaxoSmithKline is recalling a “small” number of batches of its Bactroban penicillin following a harsh rebuke from US regulators about contamination at a key plant. The move comes after the US Food and Drug Administration sent a stern warning letter Tuesday to the drug maker about a host of quality-control problems at the facility, which is located in Worthing in the United Kingdom.
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Volkswagen AG is facing new lawsuits by New York and at least two other states that might cost the company hundreds of billions of dollars for cheating on pollution-control tests.

The suits include claims that former VW Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn and other top company executives orchestrated an elaborate coverup when the scam came to light, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said. New York’s complaint was filed Tuesday in state court in Albany, the attorney general said.

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The Justice Department is preparing lawsuits to block two giant health insurance deals, according to a person briefed on the matter, continuing a spate of antitrust actions in a whirlwind year for mergers and acquisitions.

Antitrust officials are concerned that Aetna’s $37 billion deal with Read more . . .