Current Events

CLEVELAND, Ohio-- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning for patients who take the multiple sclerosis drug fingolimod, sold under the brand name Gilenya by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis after a patient taking the drug developed a rare but serious brain infection.

Gilenya was FDA–approved in 2010 for adults with relapsing forms of MS to reduce the frequency of relapses and to delay physical disability. Multiple sclerosis affects more than 2 million people worldwide.

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Taylor Farms, the large vegetable producer whose salad mix has been linked to hundreds of sickened people in 22 states, has had an unusual number of voluntary recalls for potentially tainted products in the last three years.
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The recent recall of greens used at Olive Garden, Red Lobster and possibly other restaurant chains is Taylor Farm’s fourth this year. The company initiated three others in 2012 and three in 2011, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said it will add a red warning to caps of Tylenol to reinforce the risks of taking too much of the painkiller.

The alert will appear on the caps of Extra Strength Tylenol beginning in October, New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J said today in an e-mail. The message will reinforce existing warnings that the over-the-counter pill contains the ingredient acetaminophen, which has been linked to fatal liver failure. Tylenol bottles already alert consumers to the liver risk.

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Billionaire Leonard Blavatnik won a $42.5 million breach of contract award against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) over claims the bank stuffed a fund with risky mortgage securities and lost 10 percent of his $1 billion investment. Blavatnik lost a negligence claim against the bank.

Blavatnik, 56, ranked 51st on Bloomberg’s billionaires index with a net worth of $15.6 billion, sued JPMorgan in 2009 in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, accusing the biggest U.S. bank by assets of putting more money into mortgage securities in his CMMF fund than investment guidelines allowed.

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In a Monday update on the nationwide Cyclospora outbreak from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency stated that not all of the more than 600 current cases reported in 22 states and New York City are directly related to each other.

Many of the recent cases have been reported from Texas, so CDC is collaborating with state and local health officials there by interviewing ill people about their exposure two weeks before becoming sick and identifying a cluster of those who reported eating at the same restaurant.

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Dr. Greggory Phillips was a familiar figure when he appeared before the Texas Medical Board in 2011 on charges that he'd wrongly prescribed the painkillers that killed Jennifer Chaney.

The family practitioner already had faced an array of sanctions for mismanaging medications — and for abusing drugs himself. Over a decade, board members had fined him thousands of dollars, restricted his prescription powers, and placed his medical license on probation with special monitoring of his practice.

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Washington — In another setback for Chrysler Group LLC’s Jeep brand, federal regulators said Friday the agency is looking into reports of three major fires in the roofs of Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is launching a preliminary investigation into 146,000 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs after receiving three reports alleging the vehicle’s interior caught fire near the passenger-side sun visor.

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A  jury in one of New York’s most conservative counties recently returned a $130 million verdict in a medical-malpractice case, the second-largest in the state’s history. Lawyers for the losing hospital decried a “jury out of control” and called for more tort reform. Before the case went to trial, their offer of an $8 million settlement was turned down.

What the defense lawyers seemed not to realize is that tort reform hasn’t worked for 25 years. And large verdicts may be the most effective drivers in making health care safer.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Folks who worked, lived or volunteered in, near and around exposure zones and who suffered physical harm as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, can still claim help.

But time is running out.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), the world’s biggest seller of health-care products, has discussed paying more than $3 billion to settle lawsuits over its recalled hip implants, according to five people familiar with the matter.

J&J seeks to resolve as many as 11,500 lawsuits in the U.S. and has considered paying more than $300,000 per case, according to the people. Such a settlement would exceed $3 billion if most plaintiffs accept the terms, an amount 50 percent larger than that proposed in previous discussions.

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