Current Events

More than 400 people, including doctors, pharmacists and nurses, have been charged in connection with a massive health care fraud scheme that bilked the federal government of more than $1 billion, federal officials announced Thursday.

About a quarter of those were charged with fraud specifically related to opioids, said the officials from the Justice Department and Department of Health and Human Services.

Describing some of the cases brought, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said trusted medical professionals “have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the health care fraud bust targeted those who “maliciously contributed” to the nation’s opioid epidemic.

In all, 412 people, including 56 doctors, were charged as a result of the nationwide operation.
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Coco Loko, a new product containing chocolate and energy-drink ingredients all ground into a powder, was made to be snorted. According to the website, doing so gives the user a "steady rush of euphoric energy and motivation that is great for party goers to dance the night away without a crash."

Not surprisingly, doctors are warning against using the product—which is not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it is marketed as a supplement, not as a food or drug—because they don't know how the human body will respond to snorting the ingredients in the powder.
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WASHINGTON — Makers of cardiac defibrillators, insulin pumps, breast implants and other medical devices might be able to delay reporting dangerous malfunctions to the Food and Drug Administration under an agreement heading for a vote in Congress.

Device makers will still have to quickly report any injuries or deaths related to their products. They would have more time, though, to file reports on devices that may not be working properly, and have the potential for injury.

The deal is part of a pact between the F.D.
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Consumers can now sue banks in class-action lawsuits. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday financial companies will no longer be allowed to force customers to use arbitration to settle group disputes, restricting the industry's favored legal tool after years of review.

Currently, credit card and bank companies often insert arbitration clauses in their contracts to prevent consumers from banding together to file class-action lawsuits over scams and fraudulent products. Harmed individuals who seek remedy – often in small amounts -- are forced to sue on their own in small claims court, discouraging many lawsuits from consumers who deem them not worthy of their time, money and effort.

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Honda Motor Co said on Monday it had confirmed an 11th U.S. death involving one of its vehicles tied to a faulty Takata Corp air bag inflator. The Japanese automaker said the incident occurred in Florida in June 2016 when an individual was working on repairs on a 2001 Honda Accord and theair bag ruptured. At least 17 deaths and 180 injuries worldwide are now tied to the defect that prompted the largest ever auto safety recall and led Takata to file for bankruptcy protection last month.
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A federal appeals court has upheld a $28 million judgment against cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds in a lawsuit filed by a Connecticut smoker who got cancer.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York also ruled Friday that the case will be sent back to the trial court to see if the company must pay additional damages.

Norwich resident Barbara Izzarelli sued the Winston-Salem, NC-based company in 1999 after surviving laryngeal cancer.
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A California judge has granted a preliminary approval for Wells Fargo & Co's agreement to pay $142 million, and perhaps more, to customers whose credit scores were harmed by its employees creating fake accounts in their names, the bank said on Sunday.

Wells Fargo has set aside that money to compensate customers who are part of a class-action lawsuit involving claims regarding consumer or small business bank accounts, credit cards or loans, as well as identity theft protection, between May 2002 and April of this year. It plans to begin reaching out to those affected customers soon.

In the "unlikely event" that there are so many claims, and there is not $25 million left over to distribute across all customers involved in the lawsuit, Wells Fargo said it will pay more. The bank reached the settlement in April, according to a regulatory filing, but the judge's preliminary approval moves the deal to the next step.
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The number of opioid prescriptions written in the United States has declined in recent years, according to newly released federal data, but the number of people who have fallen victim to fatal overdoses from prescription painkillers or heroin continues to rise.

The problem is especially acute in small town and rural America, where the unemployment rate remains high and a disproportionate number of residents are on Medicare or Medicaid, according to the data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The rapid growth in opioid prescriptions in the last two decades has coincided with and contributed to a spike in the number of drug overdoses in the United States. And even as prescriptions have slumped, more people are dying: More than 52,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2015, the last full year for which data is available. 

Early estimates suggest the number of overdose deaths was far higher in 2016, and growing still in the early months of 2017.
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Automakers around the world likely will be stuck with billions of dollars in recall losses now that airbag supplier Takata Corp. has filed for bankruptcy.

Takata's Japanese customers will feel the most pain. Honda, Toyota and Nissan combined have earmarked more than $10 billion to cover their share of the massive global recall of defective Takata airbag inflators that can explode with deadly force.

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The companies that manufacture and distribute highly addictive painkillers are facing a barrage of lawsuits for the toll their product has taken on communities across the country as the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history continues to escalate.

Within the past year, at least 25 states, cities and counties have filed civil cases against manufacturers, distributors and large drugstore chains that make up the $13 billion-a-year opioid industry. In the past few weeks alone, the attorneys general for Ohio and Missouri, along with the district attorneys for three counties in Tennessee, filed suits against the industry — and the attorney general for Oklahoma filed suit on Friday.
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A federal judge on Friday ruled that a plaintiff suing General Motors alleging a defective ignition switch could present evidence about earlier models of the switch that were involved in fatal accidents.

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