People with injury claims against Guidant are learning more and more about how the company did business – and the news for Guidant is not good.
This article reveals that a former employee is talking and says that the company set “unrealistic” goals for production of pacemakers and defibrillators.
The New England Journal of Medicine is hardly a tool of the plaintiffs’ bar. So when the Journal criticizes the lack of complete disclosures in reports concerning clinical trials people should stand up and take notice.
The editor of the Journal says that some companies “are meeting the letter but not the spirit of the law.” Read the study of the compliance rate of drug manufacturers with the federal law that governs clinical trials here.
Here is an editorial written by the Journal staff on the subject. An excerpt: “In our opinion, it is unacceptable for a trial sponsor not to register its trial in a complete, meaningful, and timely fashion. We call for all clinical investigators and patients to participate only in fully registered trials.”
The President will sign a budget bill containing a provision for immunity for manufacturers of certain vaccines. I cannot track down the legislation itself but here is an ATLA summary of it:
“The liability provisions allow the Secretary of HHS to declare that a drug, device, or vaccine is a covered countermeasure for a pandemic, epidemic, or potential public health emergency. Once a product is covered, the manufacturer is provided immunity for even reckless misconduct. The bill does not even provide a compensation fund for injured patients. Instead it established a compensation process, but appropriates no funding to provide compensation for those who are injured.”
The federal Vioxx case that was mistried earlier this month has been set for a second trial on February 6, 2006.
Read more here.
One juror says that the jury was split 8-1 in the first federal Vioxx trial – for the defendant. Read more here.
Deaths caused by Tazers have been in the news in Nashville lately, and a products trial concerning the device has started in Arizona.
According to the article some 35 claims are pending against the company.
Read more here.
Here is an article that wraps up the first federal court Vioxx trial. The case will be re-tried in a few months.
The judge declared a mistrial in the Vioxx case this morning. The jury was unable to reach a verdict.
The Vioxx jury in Houston resumes deliberatons today.
The jury comes back Monday for a fourth day of deliberations in the first federal MDL Vioxx trial. The jury was given a dynamite or Allen charge on Saturday.
Read more here.
Day on Torts