Current Events

The massive computer breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment could test laws that require companies to protect their employees' personal and medical information.

Lawyers representing former Sony Pictures employees have separately filed in Los Angeles two lawsuits that seek class-action status, alleging Sony Pictures Entertainment was negligent in the months leading up to the devastating hack. One of the complaints — a 45-page federal lawsuit, which seeks to represent former and current Sony employees — contends that Sony ignored warnings that its computer network was prone to attack.

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Owners of General Motors cars with faulty ignition switches turned to the only judge who can help them, saying it’s wrong to shield the automaker behind bankruptcy law.

In their first formal demand to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber, customers said GM left defective cars on the market long after it knew they were dangerous. The automaker must be made to pay for its “callous cover-up” and the collapse of prices after belated recalls this year, they said today in court papers in Manhattan.

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U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the anti-cancer drug Cyramza (ramucirumab) has been expanded to include aggressive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the agency said Friday.

NSCLC, the most common form of lung cancer, will be diagnosed in an estimated 224,000 Americans this year, and about 159,000 Americans will die from it, the FDA said, citing U.S. National Cancer Institute projections.

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Two new studies have found that far more kids are using electronic cigarettes than previously reported, raising fears that the products could hook another generation on nicotine even as cigarette use is falling.

About 25% of high school students in Connecticut and 29% of teens in Hawaii have used e-cigarettes, according to separate studies. About 18% of the Hawaii teens and 12% of the Connecticut high school students had used e-cigarettes in the past month. Both studies were done in 2013.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) more than doubled its number of vehicles recalled to replace Takata Corp. (7312) air bags, a week after a U.S. regulator criticized the carmaker for failing to take more aggressive action.

Chrysler said it will replace front passenger-side Takata air-bag inflators in 357,933 vehicles, including some models of the Dodge Ram pickup truck and the Chrysler 300 sedan, in a Dec. 10 notice posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website. The company had said Dec. 3 it would add only 149,150 older model Dodge Ram pickups to its recalls.

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For nearly two decades, Takata has struggled to tame an inexpensive but unstable compound thought to play a central role in airbag ruptures that are linked to at least five deaths and dozens of injuries.

As far back as June 1995, a patent application filed by Takata expressed concern over using the compound, saying that it was so vulnerable to temperature changes that its casing, under excessive pressure, “might even blow up,” a review of patent documents by The New York Times found.

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Many of the physicians and other experts who sit on FDA advisory panels to review medical devices have financial ties to manufacturers, but the regulator has failed to disclose the relationships, according to an analysis of corporate, state and federal data by The Wall Street Journal.

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Despite large declines in smoking rates, cigarettes still cause about one-third of cancer deaths in the United States, according to a new study.

"Our results indicate that cigarette smoking causes about three in 10 cancer deaths in the contemporary United States. Reducing smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for U.S. public health efforts to prevent future cancer deaths," researchers from the American Cancer Society wrote.

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Antipsychotic drugs have helped many people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. But for older people with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia, they can be deadly. The Food and Drug Administration has given these drugs a black box warning, saying they can increase the risk of heart failure, infections and death. Yet almost 300,000 nursing home residents still get them.

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Stryker Corp. (SYK)’s OtisMed unit pleaded guilty to selling devices used in knee-replacement surgeries in September 2009 without regulatory approval and will pay more than $80 million to resolve the case.

OtisMed will pay a fine of $34.4 million and forfeit $5.16 million in a criminal case, while paying a civil fine of $41.2 million. The company pleaded guilty today in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, where former Chief Executive Officer Charlie Chi also pleaded guilty. Stryker bought OtisMed Corp. in November 2009.

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