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In 2001, the U.S. Attorney in Boston charged TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. (TAP) with conspiring to provide urologists with thousands of free samples of Lupron', for which the doctors billed Medicare and their patients. In order to survive and continue selling its blockbuster product for advanced prostate cancer, TAP made a reasoned decision to pay the government $885 million to resolve both civil and criminal charges. With this resolution, Boston's talented federal prosecutors continued their remarkable success in bringing major pharmaceuticals to their knees and reaching landmark settlements.
There is a newly urgent push from outside the pharmaceutical research and development community to get drug firms and the government to disclose the results of all tests conducted on new drugs and to immediately reveal information about problems that develop after those drugs go on the market. Consumers and health care providers say they're tired of finding out belatedly that negative information has come to light about the drugs they take or prescribe.
Medical malpractice cases often reflect a series of events unique to one patient, independent of broader health care issues or a larger patient population. On occasion, however, the medico-legal issues of a single case may reflect an overarching social phenomenon, requiring counsel and the courts to address both factors if a just result is to be achieved. This is the story of one such case.
The plaintiff's bar has discovered an opportunity in clinical research. The deep pockets of pharmaceutical companies provide one attraction, but attorneys are seldom shy about suing anyone who might even remotely be found liable for an injury. Successful litigation is rare, but the judgments can be expensive. Because of this, many physicians who conduct clinical research are reviewing their medical malpractice insurance policies. Many others, however, have no concept of the looming risks and of whether they are protected by their medical malpractice insurance policies when taking part in clinical trials.
A Chicago judge has ruled that a husband and wife will be allowed to proceed with a wrongful death suit against a fertility clinic that allegedly inadvertently discarded their fertilized egg. Lawyers say courts have previously considered cases involving embryos to be property rights or negligence claims, but a wrongful death action presents a new issue that could affect abortion law, stem cell research, genetic testing and a wide range of other issues. "Calling this a wrongful death is a new frontier for the judiciary," said Andrew Worek, a medical malpractice defense lawyer with Philadelphia's Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby. Worek has written about the legal issues surrounding pre-embryonic human cells. "In the past, they have been handled as property or negligence cases."
Features
In April 2004, President Bush called for development of a nationwide electronic health records system that would include most Americans' health data within 10 years. He took some steps then to get the ball rolling, but funding for the program was cut in November as part of a plan to balance the federal budget. However, in the first months of 2005, Bush renewed his push for reforms, which he asserts will cut health care costs and reduce medical errors.
Features
National news items of interest to you and your practice.