Current Events

WASHINGTON — Early one Sunday evening six years ago, Army Pfc. George D.B. MacDonald made his way through his Fort Benning barracks to the bunk where a 23-year-old recruit named Rick Bulmer lay sleeping.

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Electronic cigarettes appear to be safer than ordinary cigarettes for one simple — and simply obvious — reason: people don’t light up and smoke them.

With the e-cigarettes, there is no burning tobacco to produce myriad new chemicals, including some 60 carcinogens.

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An Illinois appellate court has reinstated a decade-old $10.1 billion verdict in a class-action lawsuit against Phillip Morris USA that found the nation's biggest cigarette maker misled customers about "light" and "low tar" designations.

Philip Morris swiftly decried Tuesday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the Mount Vernon-based 5th District Appellate Court, saying it would ask the Illinois Supreme Court to review the matter. As that takes place, Philip Morris said, the latest decision is automatically stayed.

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An unusual meeting took place this week at a law office high in a Times Square skyscraper. Lawyers from about 100 law firms participated, either in person or by phone. The agenda: solidifying a strategy for taking on General Motors in bankruptcy court.

Bankruptcy court was supposed to be a fading memory for the giant automaker. But on Friday, less than five months after declaring the era of “Government Motors” over and done with, the new G.M., which just completed its 17th consecutive profitable quarter, will be back before Judge Robert E. Gerber in the Federal Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York, girding for a new fight.

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The use of "big data" saves lives and makes the economy run more efficiently, but new legislation is necessary to protect Americans' privacy and to make certain analytics are not used by businesses to discriminate against customers, President Obama's advisers say.

The findings come in a report released Thursday by the White House in response to a promise by President Obama to explore how advancing analytic technologies are changing society and what impact the changes are having on personal privacy.

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Baxter Healthcare Corp is recalling some models of its infusion pumps used to deliver medicine, blood and other fluids after it received over 3,500 reports of malfunctioning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

The reports included nine severe adverse events, but no deaths, the regulator said on Thursday.

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Endo Health Solutions Inc. (ENDP) said it will pay about $830 million to resolve most lawsuits alleging its vaginal-mesh implants eroded in some women and left them incontinent and in pain.

Endo’s American Medical Systems Inc. unit said in a statement that it’s settling about 20,000 suits over the devices, which include the Perigee, Apogee and Elevate implants. Dublin-based Endo still faces at least 5,000 claims against AMS, including some that have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings in West Virginia, according to court records.

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The FDA failed to respond to a 2011 petition demanding strong warnings about proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), according to a Public Citizen's lawsuit filed today.

Public Citizen's lawsuit seeks a ruling from the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia that the FDA unlawfully withheld action, and calls for an order for the FDA to act within 30 days.

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Apparently, the FDA's warning four months ago was missed by many physicians, pharmacists and patients, so the drug agency, in an unusual move, saw fit Monday to remind us: Stop writing prescriptions for, stop dispensing prescriptions for, and stop taking medications containing more than 325 mg. of acetaminophen.

Your liver will thank you, since acetaminophen overdose has overtaken viral hepatitis infection as the most common cause of acute liver failure. It is now the second most common cause of liver failure requiring transplantation in the United States.

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When it comes to the link between antidepressants and suicidal behavior in young people, dose may matter quite a bit, a new study suggests.

The Food and Drug Administration has for years required antidepressants to carry warnings that they may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and adults under age 25. The study, published online Monday by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds the risk for deliberate self harm doubles when depressed young people start treatment with higher-than-usual doses.

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a federal grand jury are investigating General Motors Co. over its handling of the massive recall, as the government probes into the ignition switch crisis widens.

The SEC probe, revealed Thursday in a financial disclosure document filed with the government by GM itself, seeks to determine why it took GM a decade to recall some 2.6 million cars with faulty ignition switches that were linked to at least 13 deaths and 32 crashes.

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