- Bill advancing in California legislature would authorize jail for nursing home staff who “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns” [Eugene Volokh, SB 219]
- “The FDA cannot get out of its own way on the issue of off-label communications.” [Stephen McConnell, Drug and Device Law Blog first and second posts]
- Public health covets territory of other studies and disciplines, part CLXXII [British Medical Journal on American College of Physicians’ resolution declaring “hate crimes” and “legislation with discriminatory intent” to be public health issues]
- Podcast on battle between Vascular Solutions and the FDA [Federalist Society with Howard Root and Devon Westhill]
- Policy U-turns needed: “Deregulation and Market Forces Can Lower Pharmaceutical Prices” [Marc Joffe, Reason]
- Florida Supreme Court ignored market history in striking down noneconomic damages limits in medical malpractice awards [Robert E. White, Jr., Insurance Journal and Andrew S. Bolin, WLF on North Broward Hospital District, et al v. Kalitan]
Posts Tagged ‘FDA’
September 6 roundup
- “Judge dismisses lawsuit that challenged Zillow’s home price estimates” [Chicago Tribune, earlier]
- Seventh Circuit: immunity doctrine bars relief for governor’s aide whose home was raided in Wisconsin John Doe probe [Archer v. Chisholm, earlier]
- Good news: Federal court kills Obama overtime-for-midlevel-employees rule much criticized in this space [Trey Kovacs, CEI]
- Not so good news: new FDA management decides to leave in place Obama menu labeling regs much criticized in this space [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Baylen Linnekin]
- Senate holds hearing on proposals to break up Ninth Circuit [Diamond Naga Siu, Politico, earlier]
- “Will U.S. Policymakers Repeat Our Past Protectionist Failures?” [Scott Lincicome, Cato]
Pharmaceutical roundup
- What if law firms advertising about drugs had to live with the same set of rules as drug firms advertising about drugs? [Beck, Drug and Device Law]
- Jury: no injury damages for testosterone-gel plaintiff, but lawyer got us upset at AbbVie so here’s $150 million anyway [Lisa Schencker, Chicago Tribune]
- “Plaintiff’s design defect claim was that the defendant shouldn’t have used ibuprofen at all, but rather [an alternative compound] even though the FDA has not approved [that compound] for sale in the United States.” That won’t fly even in California [Beck]
- Sky-high prices: “The pharmaceutical market is anything but free at present” [Marc Joffe, Reason]
- Opioids epidemic poses a policy challenge but no time to panic [Jeffrey Singer/Cato, related podcast, op-ed, panel; an ACA angle?]
- “Gene editing isn’t about designer babies, it’s about hope for people like me” [Alex Lee, Guardian]
August 1 roundup
- Truly good news for both individual liberty and harm reduction: FDA grants reprieve for now to e-cigarettes/vaping [New York Times, Jacob Sullum/Reason, related; earlier on vaping, tobacco harm reduction, and the FDA here, here, and generally. Update: I’ve got a longer treatment up now at Cato;
- HUD seems finally to be backing off its long dispute with Westchester County, N.Y., long chronicled in this space and elsewhere [Howard Husock, City Journal]
- “Which side of the case is the federal government coming in on?” “Both, Your Honor.” [Rob Rosborough on DoJ’s intervention on opposite side from EEOC on question of whether Title VII covers sexual orientation, earlier on which here, etc.; Tony Mauro on DoJ split from NLRB on arbitration in Murphy Oil case; Thaya Brook Knight in March on constitutionality of CFPB] See also Marty Lederman, SCOTUSBlog, 2014;
- “Michigan Juror Rights Pamphleteer Free From Jail Pending His Appeal” [Jacob Sullum]
- Many satirical limericks later, Olive Garden’s parent company says its nastygram to a blogger “was auto-generated, and the company will take no further action.” [Charlotte Allen, Weekly Standard; earlier]
- There’s a delivery out front: “Florida man who drove dead body to lawyer’s office won’t be charged” [AP/ClickOrlando]
Vicarious criminal liability for managers: how we got there
In Dotterweich v. U.S., a 1943 case that established a persistent and troublesome doctrine in criminal law, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that a pharmaceutical company manager could appropriately be convicted over the misdeeds of an underling without having to show that he knew of the violation, participated in it, intended it, or was negligent in failing to prevent it. My new Cato post summarizes new research by Craig Lerner on Dotterweich’s trial, in which the court seemed to struggle with the idea of imposing vicarious guilt without mens rea (a guilty state of mind). I also link to the chapter I wrote on white-collar prosecution in this year’s new edition of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.
Food roundup
- “Hilariously Truthful Defense of Waffle House Goes Viral” [Jeffrey Tucker, FEE]
- New York joins 26 states in limiting liability for pick-your-own and other agritourism businesses [Paul Post, The Saratogian]
- “Removing Glyphosate from Our Food Won’t Make Us Safer” [Jenny Splitter, Vice]
- U.K.: advisor to World Health Organization suggests drinking be “de-normalized” by making compulsory cancer warnings on alcoholic beverages [Benedict Spence, The Spectator]
- “Mandating Menu Labeling is Foolish, Not ‘Easy'” [Baylen Linnekin, Reason, earlier]
- How exactly is limiting the size of meal portions in restaurants a proper function for the government of India? [Rupa Subramanya/LiveMint via Alex Tabarrok]
Medical roundup
- Protecting Access to Care Act: “House passes medical malpractice bill” [Kimberly Leonard/Washington Examiner, GovTrack, Todd Shryock/Medical Economics, my earlier]
- “FDA’s Gottlieb Hints at a Huge Overhaul of Health Tech Regulations” [Mike Riggs, Reason]
- “Law Review Article on Off-label is On Target” [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law on Conners, “Illuminating the Off-label Fable: How Off-label Promotion May Actually Help Patients”]
- There’s a British website called Stop Suing the NHS, here is a sample post, and here is more about the writer, Susanne Cameron-Blackie;
- Another survey ranks New York worst state for doctors, trial lawyer supremacy in legislature a major reason [Thomas Stebbins, Gotham Gazette]
- Iowa law requires Certificate of Need for freestanding surgical centers. Sweet deal for exempt hospital competitors [Eric Boehm/Reason, Mike Rappaport/Law and Liberty]
Medical roundup
- Whether or not California’s 1975 MICRA law limiting medical liability serves as a model for anything national, its results merit study by other states [H. Thomas Watson, Robert H. Wright, and S. Thomas Todd, WLF]
- No, Kaiser Health News and Scientific American, a 1-in-3 rate of post-marketing drug safety alerts does not prove FDA too lax [“Scott Alexander,” Slate Star Codex]
- Jim Hood Watch: “Mississippi AG, with the help of outside attorneys, sues pharma companies over allegedly unapproved drugs” [Jessica Karmasek, Legal Newsline]
- When deconstruction met evidence-based medicine and denunciations of “microfascism” ensued [Dave Holmes et al., International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 2006 via Nicholas Christakis]
- Sen. Joe Manchin’s “approve one opioid, yank another from market” bill to tie FDA hands is a bad idea [Jeffrey Singer, Huffington Post]
- Death by a thousand clicks: what Boston doctors can’t stand about electronic medical records [John Levinson, Bruce Price and Vikas Saini, WBUR]
“The rice industry is furious at the existence of ‘cauliflower rice'”
Some in the rice business would like to hang an FDA mislabeling rap on “cauliflower rice” — but not on “rice milk” [Chase Purdy, Quartz]
Food roundup
- “What’re You In For?” “Lemonade.” A Boston professor wants sugary drinks handled the same way as alcohol [my new Cato post]
- Hershey, many other firms sued over “slack fill” packaging by guy who wrote book entitled “Sue and Grow Rich” [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine]
- What if we forced food to be more local? The unintended consequences might surprise you [Jayson Lusk]
- “Shaking up the Conventional Wisdom on Salt” [Michelle Minton, CEI, in January]
- Demands in U.K. to put “junk food” in plain packaging the way some countries require for cigarettes [Trevor Little, World Trademark Review] Another demand of U.K. anti-food campaigners: stop discounting and offering deals on snacks and candies [BBC]
- Missed from 2011: FDA vetoes culinary use of the subtle tonka bean, but is it actually any more toxic than nutmeg? [Ike DeLorenzo, The Atlantic]