Merck Serono SA, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, has settled its drug kickback case with the US Justice Department by agreeing to pay $44.3 million. Federal prosecutors were pursuing charges against Merck that the drug maker illegally paid doctors to prescribe their multiple sclerosis drug Rebif to patients. The investigation concerned the company’s activities from 2002-2009. The Justice Department found that Merck paid doctors to go to training conferences and seminars at upscale, posh resorts in exchange for prescribing the MS drug.
“The health care of our seniors and other vulnerable citizens under the Medicare and Medicaid programs should be based upon sound medical decisions, not upon decisions tainted by influence and corruption,” said Tony West, assistant attorney for the Justice Department’s civil division.
Merck is not the only pharmaceutical company to have legal issues with the Justice Department. Both Eli Lilly and Pfizer have paid similar penalties for kickback schemes. Unfortunately, such financial penalties don’t deter such large companies from engaging in illegal activity. The profits the companies stand to make far outweighs the financial penalties they face if the federal government investigates them.

Lawyers for survivors of Dr. Reardon’s sexual abuse finished closing arguments yesterday. The trial is now in the hands of the jury. The survivors have contended that St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center failed to supervise and monitor so-called “growth” studies performed by Dr. George Reardon who has been accused of abusing hundreds of young boys under the guise of medical exams.
According to the Hartford Courant, “The jury began considering a verdict at about 4 p.m. Thursday, after the hourlong summations and after Superior Court Judge Dan Shaban, presiding over the trial’s fifth week, gave them instructions in applicable law.
Doe’s suit against the hospital contains two counts for the jury to consider. Both accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center of negligence that contributed substantially to Reardon’s ability to abuse children.
The first contends that the hospital’s failure to apply generally accepted scientific standards of review to research by Reardon resulted in the abuse of Doe. It also claims that St. Francis failed in a special duty under state law to provide care to vulnerable children in its custody, including Doe.”

A 28 year old middle school teacher, Joel A. Huddleston, has been arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child. In addition to his teaching duties, Huddleston coaches the girls’ basketball team.
According to the local CBS affiliate, “Joel A. Huddleston, of 3844 NW 30 Ave., also is youth pastor at the Buckhead Ridge Christian Church, according to the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office.”

Disgraced Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey will face criminal charges of having explicit images of young boys engaged in sex acts on his computer. Lahey was arrested in September 2009 after being detained for questioning at the Ottawa airport. Bishop Lahey later resigned his post as the bishop of Antigonish in Canada.
Besides the criminal trial, Lahey faces a civil suit from a man who says Lahey abused him when he was a young boy. At the time of the sexual abuse, Lahey was living at a Canadian orphanage notorious for the sexual abuse of minors.

Facing lawsuits in Washington state and Canada, the Congregation of Christian Brothers has filed for bankruptcy protection in New York state where they are headquartered. Scores of sexual abuse lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Seattle and the Christian Brothers concerning the sexual abuse of minor boys in boarding schools and orphanages run by the Christian Brothers within the territory of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
According to Reuters, 35 of the lawsuits stem from cases involving the now-defunct Briscoe Memorial School, an orphanage and boarding school jointly run by the archdiocese and Christian Brothers in Kent, Washington. According to lawyers handling these cases, the bankruptcy filing is nothing more than an attempt to protect the religious order’s assets.
While these sexual abuse cases occurred in the northwest, the Christian Brothers have been implicated in the horrible Irish sexual abuse scandal. Many of the cases involving schools and minor boys sexually abused by religious involved the Christian Brothers.

Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes, who oversaw the Philadelphia grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment of three Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests, has submitted her letter of resignation. No reason was given for her abrupt resignation. Judge Hughes was serving her second 10 year term on the Court of Common Pleas.
The Philadelphia grand jury which she oversaw resulted in the criminal indictments of Monsignor William Lynn, a high ranking Archdiocesan official. Lynn’s indictment marked the first time a Catholic Church official has been indicted for allowing the sexual abuse of minors in the United States.

Johnson & Johnson, the troubled medical device manufacturer, has decided to purchase the Swiss medical device company Synthes and add it to J&J’s subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. Synthes already does the bulk of its orthopedics business in the United States. It manufactures screws, plates, nails and other implantable medical devices to fix broken bones.
Synthes will join DePuy as DePuy struggles with hip implant lawsuits concerning its DePuy ASR XL hip implant and the DePuy Pinnacle hip replacement. The ASR XL has been recalled and faces mounting lawsuits which have been consolidated in a multidistrict litigation in Ohio. Pinnacle has not been recalled but is facing lawsuits for similar issues including metallosis, hip implant loosening, and hip failure within a short period of time after implant surgery. Many of those who’ve had DePuy hips implanted have had to endure painful and complicated revision surgeries to correct the problems caused by the defective hip implants.

An Oregon federal judge has ordered the release of some Vatican documents concerning the sexual abuse of a survivor in the 1960’s. In his ruling, Judge Michael Mosman ordered the Vatican to release some documents relating to the issue of whether the priest accused of sexual molestation was an employee of the Vatican. The judge limited the discovery request to those document relating specifically to the priest accused of sexual molestation, Fr. Andrew Ronan, who died in 1992. The documents that should be made available per the judicial order concern Ronan’s interaction with certain Vatican departments such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well as the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy since these departments are the ones that would have most likely been involved in the priest’s sexual abuse allegations and the Vatican’s handling of the charges which include laicization or removal from the clerical state.
The Vatican has taken the position that it knew nothing about the priest until after the sexual abuse took place. However, Fr. Ronan is known to have abused a seminarian in Ireland prior to transferring to the United States where he continued to abuse minors. He was subsequently laicized in 1966.
The Ronan case is an interesting one since it is the first of its kind to involve a judicial order mandating the release of Vatican documents concerning a sexual abuse lawsuit.

In response to research done by the North American Antiepileptic Drug Pregnancy Registry, the FDA has moved Topamax from category C to D which is the second highest warning rating. The FDA move comes in light of data that suggests pregnancies exposed in utero to the drug Topamax have a significantly increased risk of being born with birth defects such as a cleft palate or cleft lip.
The new FDA category means that Topamax has a significant potential for causing injury or harm to an unborn child. The Topamax related injuries are severe in that they can cause pain and are permanent.
Topamax, manufactured by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is an anti-seizure drug that may be associated with an increased risk of birth injuries when compared to other anti-seizure drugs.

Judge David A. Katz, the federal judge in charge of the multidistrict litigation for the consolidated DePuy ASR XL hip lawsuits has issued an order to preserve all hip replacement parts so that they may be used as evidence in the hip trials. The preservation order handed down on April 6th instructs those who are responsible for the custody of the hip replacement parts to preserve them in such a manner that no additional damage or alteration be made to the DePuy hip parts.
The multidistrict litigation has been consolidated in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.