Dennis Quaid tells dangers of mislabeled drugs, devices at preemption hearing

Photo by Bridgette Blair

Taking a mislabeled drug or using a defective medical device is a dangerous thing. Just ask actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly.

In November 2007, their newborn twins were given a massive overdose of Heparin, an anticoagulant drug. The twins were supposed to receive another drug that would ease the intravenous administration of antibiotics. Why were they given the wrong medication? The two drugs’ labels were similar. Baxter Healthcare Corp., the manufacturer of both drugs, was aware of the problem – in 2006, the same confusion over the labeling of Heparin caused the death of three infants at an Indianapolis hospital. Baxter relabeled Heparin to avoid this confusion before the Quaid twins were born. But here’s the shocker: The company didn’t recall the drug stock with the confusing label, so it remained on pharmacy shelves and was eventually injected into the twins.

The twins survived, barely.

Dennis Quaid made his way to the Hill this morning to tell his and his wife’s story at a Congressional hearing, and Public Citizen attorney Brian Wolfman accompanied them as part of their legal counsel. (Wolfman, director of the Public Citizen Litigation Group and a preemption expert, has written an article about preemption and why its proponents are wrong in TRIAL Magazine.)

Just say ‘no’ to super-sized trucks

This week, lobbyists from the trucking and shipping industries are making the rounds at the Capitol, pushing their agenda to put longer and heavier trucks on the road. Fortunately, some of the more enlightened members of Congress such as Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Claire McCaskill and Rep. James McGovern are having none of it. There’s plenty of evidence that shows these mammoth rigs are responsible for disproportionate number of traffic fatalities each year. The fact is, the larger the trucks get, the harder they are to control and the longer they take to stop. Today, safety groups, including Public Citizen, along with the above-mentioned members of Congress held a news conference to counter the trucking and shipping industries’ call for larger trucks. If you live in Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina or Maine, you should be especially worried.

Ortho-Evra exposes women to dangerous estrogen levels, Public Citizen tells FDA

When Johnson & Johnson received approval from the FDA in November 2001 for Ortho-Evra, a contraceptive patch, the company claimed its product would have two key advantages over existing oral contraceptives:

1) A constant delivery of hormones

2) Improvements in compliance compared to the daily dosing of oral contraceptives

It sounded like a great deal. Women could wear the patch on their skin for seven days before removal. No longer would they have to worry about taking a pill at the same time every day or about the ups and downs of hormone delivery associated with pill use. However, evidence soon emerged showing that the patch wasn’t as great a deal as originally thought.

Times are tough all over: ExxonMobil’s tale of woe

Poor ExxonMobil. It barely cleared $10.8 billion in profit in the first quarter of this year, which still was second highest corporate profit posted ever. And yet, it still wasn’t enough for Wall Street analysts, who had predicted that ExxonMobil would make even more. Nomi Prins at The WIP figures ExxonMobil’s woes are “just pre-election spin, ensuring that whichever candidate gets into the Oval Office doesn’t try to take some of their profits away by taxing them.” Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, took the message to The Hill this morning, testifying before the House subcommittee on Highways and Transit about the oil industry profits and some serious manipulation of the futures market by financial speculators.

Michigan company loses Internet trademark case, told to grin and bear it

Public Citizen racked up another victory for Internet free speech last week when a federal judge in Michigan dismissed a trademark claim filed by a Michigan company against the consumer Web site InformercialScams.com. Lifestyle Lift, which markets cosmetic surgery through infomercials, was trying to make the somewhat ludicrous assertion that InfomercialScams couldn’t use its name as part of the URL that directed folks to reviews about the Lifestyle Lift procedures. For example, if you go to http://www.infomercialscams.com/scams/lifestyle_lift_complaints, you can read the reviews. A lot of customers had complained that the procedure doesn’t provide lasting results or left them scarred.

Guess whose gas you’re buying?

Charlie Rangel, Democratic member of Congress from New York, drives a 2004 Cadillac DeVille for a cool $777.54 a month. Michael McNulty, also a New York member of Congress, leases his 2007 Mercury Mariner hybrid for $816 a month.

And guess what? You are paying for it, along with vehicles driven by hundreds of members of Congress. They include a snazzy BMW 530i, a Lexus LS 460 and many others. A car – along with insurance, registration fees and that ever-more-costly commodity, gas – is part of the package of perks that members of the U.S. House of Representatives receive when they are elected.

What’s more, there is no limit on how much taxpayer money they can spend on their vehicles. What a sweet deal!

Now that gas prices are so high, the situation is raising eyebrows. The story was reported today in The New York Times.

Fast-food calorie law goes into effect in NYC

From Deepak Gupta @ Consumer Law & Policy Blog: Did you know that a smoked turkey sandwich (930 calories) at Chili’s has more calories than a sirloin steak (540 calories)?  Or that a large milk shake from Mc Donald’s has over 1,000 calories, about half a day’s recommended amount? Or that two jelly-filled doughnuts at Dunkin’ Donuts have fewer calories than a sesame bagel with cream cheese?    New Yorkers are about to find out. Thanks to an order from the Second Circuit issued late yesterday afternoon (the same day as oral argument on a stay motion), New York City’s landmark calorie law is now in effect. Continue Reading >>

Bush must hold oil companies, speculators accountable for high gas prices

With gas prices and oil industry profits reaching new, obscene highs, Americans deserve real solutions to our energy crisis, and not the partisan finger-pointing that is hallmark of this administration. Beginning with the vice president’s discredited energy task force, the Bush administration has failed to address the root causes of today’s energy crisis: The lack of viable alternatives to car-dependent American families and inadequate regulation of Big Oil and speculators. Bush’s neglect is having a huge impact on our economy and global warming.

Is the pharma party over on campus?

Kudos to the Association of American Medical Colleges for pushing to stem the influence of drug and medical device makers on college campuses. In a set of recommendations released this week, the association called for an end to the industry practice of offering gifts, travel and other perks to students and staff at the nation’s 129 medical colleges. I blogged earlier about the American Medical Students Association campaign to kick drug and device makers off campus but this latest announcement may give the movement enough momentum to bring about true reform. Gardiner Harris’ story, “Ban urged on gifts at medical schools,” in the NYT notes that critics were surprised at the far-reaching proposal considering that some leading industry officials had sat on the task force that wrote the proposed ban.

Artificial blood linked to increased deaths, heart attacks

Developing a product that could be used as a blood substitute — one that has a long-shelf life and doesn’t require refrigeration or cross-matching — would be a great medical advance. Imagine the use of it in battlefield M.A.S.H. units or in times of natural or man-made disasters. But a new study by researchers from Public Citizen and the National Institutes of Health raises some serious concerns about the rush to bring these blood substitutes to the market. The study found that patients in clinical trials treated with blood substitutes faced a 30 percent greater risk of death and a 177 greater risk of a heart attack than those treated conventionally. The study was posted online today on the Journal of the American Medical Association website.