Current Events

As tens of thousands of Americans die from prescription opioid overdoses each year, an exclusive analysis by CNN and researchers at Harvard University found that opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money -- and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she makes.

In 2014 and 2015, opioid manufacturers paid hundreds of doctors across the country six-figure sums for speaking, consulting and other services. Thousands of other doctors were paid over $25,000 during that time.

Physicians who prescribed particularly large amounts of the drugs were the most likely to get paid.

Read more . . .

Top public-health officials descended on Capitol Hill last Thursday to sound the alarm about a grim future without antibiotics. These life-saving drugs are losing their mojo as germs adapt to them. It’s a process scientists call antibiotic resistance.

In the US, 2 million people a year catch drug-resistant infections, 23,000 die and the toll “is growing, ” says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Most are hospital patients.
Read more . . .

NEW YORK/TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. consumers have filed a lawsuit against Kobe Steel Ltd (5406.T) and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) accusing the companies of violating consumer protection laws and engaging in fraud by concealing the use of substandard metal components in vehicles.
Read more . . .

More than 142,000 people were taken to emergency departments for opioid overdoses during a recent 15-month period, the latest sign the drug epidemic continues to worsen despite the efforts of public health authorities.

The 142,557 emergency visits in 45 states marked a nearly 30 percent increase between the third quarter of 2016 and the same period of 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday. In 16 states that have suffered high rates of overdose deaths, the jump was even higher, at 34.5 percent. No region or demographic group was spared, and two states — Wisconsin and Delaware — saw overdose visits to their emergency rooms more than double.
Read more . . .

Thomas “Bud” Brown makes his way out the back door and stops a few steps to the right, raising a trembling arm, pointing at something. It’s where he found his boy slumped against the cold back wall of the house around 7:15 a.m. on the last day of 2016, bleeding out.

Brown is telling the story now, about how he was sitting in his chair in the living room when he heard the shot.
Read more . . .

Equifax Inc., the credit bureau breached by hackers last year, said the card-payments industry may cut off its access to certain data or impose fines if the company can’t prove it’s addressed weaknesses.

Equifax disclosed the latest fallout from the cyber attack in a regulatory filing on Thursday, hours after announcing it had identified more consumers affected by the hacking. To tap into certain data or accept payments via cards, companies must maintain so-called ISO certifications. In light of the breach, an international organization overseeing that process suspended some of the firm’s certifications, requiring it take steps to retain them, Equifax said

Read more . . .

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that a new task force would target drug manufacturers and distributors for their roles in the opioid epidemic, raising the possibility of filing criminal charges against them.

The Justice Department also said it would file a statement of interest in hundreds of lawsuits against drug companies brought by cities, counties and medical institutions seeking reimbursement for the cost of the drug crisis. Sessions said the Justice Department would seek repayment as well, arguing that the federal government has borne substantial costs.

Read more . . .

The lawsuit was filed by Angela W., a woman from Marion County, Indiana who was injured by the Celect® Inferior Vena Cava Filter (“IVC Filter”) manufactured by Cook Medical and William Cook Europe ApS.

The IVC Filter was surgically implanted in her inferior vena cava for the purpose of preventing a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs).

Read More

Drugmakers are racing to scoop up patient health records and strike deals with technology companies as big data analytics start to unlock a trove of information about how medicines perform in the real world.

Read More

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts pharmacist was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years in prison after being convicted on racketeering and fraud charges stemming from his role in a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds more.

Glenn Chin, the former supervisory pharmacist at New England Compounding Center, was convicted by a federal jury in Boston in October but was cleared of second-degree murder charges, which would have exposed him to a maximum prison sentence of life.

Read More

>BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc for improperly marketing a cholesterol drug and ordered that some of the $40.1 million it agreed to pay to resolve a U.S. investigation go to the company’s victims.

U.
Read more . . .