Articles Posted in Product Liability

When Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin in 1995, the Food and Drug Administration permitted the company to make a unique claim for it: that its long acting formula would reduce its appeal to drug abusers who preferred short-acting opiates such as Percocet and Vicodin.

The exact opposite occurred and OxyContin became the most expensive and the most sought after drug on the black market. The New York Times obtained a copy of a confidential report from the Justice Department that indicates that shortly after the new drug was launched company officials were aware that the drug was being crushed, snorted, stolen from pharmacies and that doctors were being criminally charged for selling it to drug abusers.

A four year investigation found that despite being fully aware that OxyContin was one of the most abused drugs, the drug company failed to warn about its dangers, lied and continued to promote it as a drug less prone to abuse than any other prescription opioids. In 2006 the prosecutors recommended that 3 Purdue Pharma executives be indicted on felony charges. One of the charges was conspiracy to defraud the United States. That meant jail time for the 3 executives.  At the time, Georges Bush was the president and Justice Department officials declined the recommendation. Instead, the case was settled in 2007.

Big Wireless companies were told 20 years ago by scientists that cell phone usage could lead to cancer. The wireless industry didn’t listen to them and used the same tactics as the Tobacco and Oil industry to hide dangers from consumers. The Nation just released the results of an investigation that found that the top wireless companies have spent millions convincing people that their products were safe.

At the begining of the nineties, when only a minority of people owned a cell phone, some consumers and industry workers complained that they may have developed cancer caused by their cell phone. At the time Tom Wheeler president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) was the wireless industry’s point man in Washington. To shut down the complaints and calm down consumer concerns Wheeler hired George Carlo, a pro-industry scientist to run a comprehensive research on cell phones. George Carlo had previously conducted controversial studies helping the breast implant industry and the chemical industry. He seemed to be the perfect man to support the cell phone industry’s claims that their products were safe for consumers.

George Carlo was allocated $28.5 million for his investigation which is the highest funded cell phone study to date. Critics of the study complained that such a big amount of money could easily guarantee silent obedience of the scientific community. George Carlo denied these allegations.