- “Apple Watch can detect an early sign of heart disease…. Apple has been communicating privately with the FDA for years about medical devices and so far the FDA has taken a light touch to Apple but these issues are coming to a head.” [Tyler Cowen]
- “[Investor] lawsuits targeting life sciences firms jumped 70 percent from 2014, according to a survey provided earlier this year by Dechert.” [Amanda Bronstad, New York Law Journal]
- Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad signs medical malpractice reforms into law [Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register]
- Summing up what is known re: talc and ovarian cancer as background to jury’s $105 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson [BBC (in story’s second half), earlier here, here, and here]
- $5,300 for an MRI that would cost Medicaid $500? Personal attendants for crash victims, even the ones well enough to participate in mixed martial arts? All part of Michigan no-fault crash system [Detroit Free Press investigative series, see yesterday’s post]
- Dear D.C.: ditch the FDA deeming regs and let vaping save smokers’ lives [Jeff Stier/Henry Miller, NRO, Tony Abboud/The Hill (vaping trade association), Juliet Eilperin/Washington Post (FDA temporarily suspends enforcement)]
Posts Tagged ‘tobacco’
Medical roundup
- Scott Gottlieb likely to steer FDA in right direction [Daniel Klein]
- Study of shorter versus longer medical consent forms “finds no significant difference in comprehension, satisfaction, enrollment” [Grady et al., PLOS via Michelle Meyer]
- C’mon, ACLU and Covington: “Lawsuit Aims to Force Catholic Hospitals Perform Transgender-Related Surgeries” [Scott Shackford]
- So much: “What The New York Times Gets Wrong On Vaping Regulation” [Sally Satel]
- “Should you be compensated for your medical waste, especially if it turns out to be valuable? The right answer is: no.” [Ronald Bailey, Reason on Henrietta Lacks story]
- Kimberly-Clark: we’ve sold 70 million MicroCool hospital gowns without a single complaint of injury from alleged permeability. Calif. jury: that’ll be $454 million [Insurance Journal]
Medical roundup
- “Texas Bill Would End ‘Wrongful Birth’ Suits Against Doctors” [Insurance Journal, earlier on wrongful birth]
- Worse outcomes mean more risk of being sued: “Doctors are refusing to operate on smokers.” [Karen Garloch, Charlotte Observer/Macon Telegraph]
- 2015 breakdown by state of medical malpractice suits per capita and aggregate payouts (the latter not broken down per capita, but with Northeastern states, as usual, far overrepresented) [Becker Hospital Review] Note: figures challenged, see comments;
- “…and the medical board voted to dismiss the complaint against you.” [Birdstrike, White Coat]
- Britain considers limiting cost (legal fee) awards in lower value medical claims [John Tingle, Harvard “Bill of Health”]
- Will not surprise those who’ve been around: pharma cos. might fight attempts at easing FDA drug introduction rules [Bloomberg] Muscular dystrophy patients can see the case for drug importation [Alex Tabarrok who is interviewed on the subject by Robert Gebelhoff] Related on FDA: Ronald Bailey, Reason.
Secondhand smoke: the haze clears
Remember those studies finding secondhand smoke a major cause of heart attacks? Influential, and we now know wrong [Jacob Grier, Slate; earlier on Helena miracle here, etc.]
Medical roundup
- U.S. Surgeon General’s office, WHO campaign against vaping, e-cigarettes. Lessons of harm reduction forgotten [Jacob Sullum, Jonathan Adler, Todd Krainin]
- Plenty of other hospitals are willing to do this surgery. Catholic facilities should have conscience right to refuse [AP/NJ.com on St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center case, Stephen Miller/IGF]
- Study: states with stronger physician protection from malpractice suits had lower usage of imaging tests [Radiology Business on Suhui Li et al., Journal of the American College of Radiology]
- Hospitals that require employees to take flu shots to protect patients and others may pay dearly if they’re stingy with the religious exemptions [Jon Hyman]
- “Maybe For-Profit Hospitals Aren’t So Bad” [Shailin Thomas, Harvard “Bill of Health”]
- “New Study Finds 90% of California Pharmaceutical Plaintiffs are from Other States” [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform on Mark Behrens study for CJAC]
Food and Drug Administration roundup
- “The agency’s fear of Type II errors inhibits drug development and harms patients.” [John Cohrssen and Henry Miller, Regulation]
- Where’s the agency headed under Trump? [Alex Tabarrok; more on slow FDA hiring] Further on drug prices [Ira Stoll]
- Which is more dangerous: the battery pack in a vaping set-up, or getting between Sen. Schumer and a camera? [Nick Gillespie; Steven Greenhut and David Bahr on the case against the FDA’s “deeming” rules]
- Speaking of things the new administration should try to undo, don’t forget the bad stuff the agency is up to on pipes and cigars [Rick Newcombe, Reason]
- Cal. Gov. Brown signs “right to try” legislation [L.A. Times] Advocates propose federal version [Liz Szabo, MedCityNews] Related earlier;
- FDA peculiarly confident that radical reductions in salt intake in food supply will result in health benefits [Ronald Bailey, Reason]
Medical roundup
- “Judge Says He’s Had Enough Of Weeding Through Baseless Lawsuits, Threatens Sanctions” [Daniel Fisher; M. D. Georgia judge on vaginal mesh cases]
- More on pricey regulated generics [Scott Gottlieb/WSJ, earlier on EpiPen, more on latter from Joel Zinberg/City Journal]
- Feds ban pre-dispute arbitration agreements in nursing home care [McKnights]
- How Ronald Reagan’s FDA responded to the AIDS crisis — and it’s probably not the story you’ve heard [Peter Huber, City Journal; see also from Carl Cannon in 2014]
- FDA regs likely to winnow smaller, distinctive makers from the cigar business, recalling a Somerset Maugham story [James M. Patterson] Debunking the “Helena miracle,” once more: no link between local smoking bans and short-term drops in heart attacks [Jacob Sullum, earlier here and here]
- “Ethicists make the case for bone marrow transplantation markets” [Ilya Somin]
Food and nanny state roundup
- Has Obama administration endorsed anti-GMO campaign with new labeling law? Not really [Thomas Firey, Cato, earlier here, here, etc.]
- United Nations anti-tobacco meeting seeks to exclude persons overly involved with tobacco production, ban list turns out to include many officials of member governments [Huffington Post UK]
- Dumping Michigan tart cherries to comply with USDA marketing order? There must be a better way [Baylen Linnekin]
- “I am the man, the very fat man, who waters the workers’ beer.” [Science Daily, prompting Christopher Snowdon’s recollection of that line of song]
- Feds alone have spent $500 million chasing food-desert mirage, with “negligible” impact on health [Mac McCann, Dallas News, earlier]
- “FDA Assigns Zero Value To Smokers Who Die Because Of Its E-Cigarette Regulations” [Jacob Sullum, more on vaping]
Free speech roundup
- New, much-anticipated documentary Can We Take a Joke? When Outrage and Comedy Collide [on demand, Greg Lukianoff] More on the fining of comedian Mike Ward by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal [Guardian, earlier]
- “It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!” [@donaldjtrump Sunday on Twitter] 25 years ago in my stump speech on lawsuit reform I criticized Trump for his use of legal threats to silence critics. More reportage on that history, a familiar topic around here [Frances S. Sellers, Washington Post, earlier here, etc.]
- Eighth Circuit: Nebraska regulators improperly retaliated against financial adviser over (inter alia) his criticism of Obama [Eugene Volokh]
- Nine senators (Boxer, Durbin, Franken, Markey, Reid, Sanders, Schumer, Warren, Whitehouse): we demand 22 right-of-center think tanks open their donation records to us [Carolina Journal]
- “Copyright infringer issues bogus DMCA over someone calling him out. Then denies all of it” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Lawsuit demanding R ratings on films with “tobacco imagery” deserves to be hit with SLAPP sanctions; “suing the MPAA to force censorship raises the stakes.” [WSJ Law Blog, Scott Greenfield]
August 3 roundup
- “Don’t Ground ‘Uber in the Sky'” [Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer on Cato Institute brief in FAA v. FlyteNow]
- Trademark spats bog down the world of craft brewing and those over place names are among the worst [Timothy Geigner/TechDirt on Miami Brewing/M.I.A. Beer Co. conflict]
- After the Freddie Gray trials, redistricting, StingRay, cyberbullying, eminent domain and more in my new Maryland roundup at Free State Notes;
- “Attorney: DOJ’s pursuit of Post Office’s competitors shows hypocrisy of administration” [Jessica Karmasek/Legal NewsLine (fixed link), earlier on FedEx trial here, here, here]
- Trial lawyers seize on New Jersey law to file wave of cases challenging online agreements [The Economist]
- FDA’s war on vaping pleases big tobacco firms, makes little sense otherwise [Jonathan Adler, Jacob Sullum]