Tag Archives: California state court

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News

Drug makers spend big to fight California price control referendum

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Drug Companies To Pour $100M Into Battle Against California’s Price Control Ballot Initiative

The initiative, likened by one lobbyist to a “grenade being rolled into the conversation,” would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the industry is gearing up to fight back. In other news, Novartis’ heart-failure drug is getting a warmer welcome in Europe than America, and the company is considering its options in selling its stake in Roche.

Politico: Drug Makers Spend Big To Fight California Price Control Referendum

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state. That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C. (Cook and Karlin-Smith, 4/25)

The industry is expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the November ballot initiative.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state.

That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Drug companies are expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the referendum in what will be a test of the industry’s strength at a time of growing consumer backlash against drug prices. The initiative would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — one of the few federal agencies allowed to negotiate drug prices.

From the industry’s perspective, California could set a dangerous precedent. Besides having an economy the size of many small countries, the liberal bastion is often a laboratory for new ideas that take root and then spread east. That’s even more likely given that the presidential front-runners are pushing the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare.

“This is the crack in the door” on drug pricing, said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit devoted to consumer protection issues. “If any Democrat in America wants bulk purchasing in Medicare, it will start with bulk purchasing for the most liberal state government in America.”

Which is precisely the intention of the initiative’s sponsor, Michael Weinstein, CEO of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “If we win, we hope it will start a national prairie fire,” he said.

Weinstein pursued the ballot measure after years of in-your-face activism on AIDS and after watching the California state legislature fail to do anything about drug prices — a big concern to people with HIV/AIDS who may be taking costly drugs for the rest of their lives.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/drug-makers-california-referendum-222334#ixzz471Q9mg4k
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Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News, Personal Injury

Jury to Decide if Monsanto PCBs Caused Plaintiffs’ Cancer

| March 15, 2016 12:45 pm

Monsanto’s controversial history with PCBs is being played out in trial in California state court this week, as the agrochemical giant has been accused of causing two retired plaintiffs to develop cancer.

The civil lawsuit, Dauber, et al. v. Monsanto Co., et al, regards plaintiffs Roslyn Dauber, 62, and John Di Costanzo, 87, who both claim that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was caused by eating PCB-contaminated food for years, Courtroom View Network (CVN) reported.

PCBs, or Polychlorinated Biphenyls, are man-made chemicals once used to insulate electronics decades ago. Before switching operations to agriculture, Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of the compound, raking a reported $22 million in business a year. But when PCBs were found to be highly toxic, the company stopped production of them in 1977 over human health and environmental concerns.

Still, the pervasive legacy of PCBs remains. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)banned them in 1979, saying:

PCBs have caused birth defects and cancer in laboratory animals, and they are a suspected cause of cancer and adverse skin and liver effects in humans. EPA estimates that 150 million pounds of PCBs are dispersed throughout the environment, including air and water supplies; an additional 290 million pounds are located in landfills in this country.

Countless individuals, school districts as well as major U.S. cities have since slammed Monsanto with lawsuits for cleanup costs, environmental pollution and for claims that exposure to PCBs causes health problems to people and wildlife.

On Thursday, plaintiff attorney Scott Frieling of Dallas-based law firm Allen Stewart PC delivered an opening statement to jurors and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger about the history of PCBs, the difficulty in removing them from the environment and how these chemicals make their way into the food chain.

“They are virtually indestructible,” Frieling said. “Once PCBs are created, they will last a very long time.”

Frieling also touched on how Monsanto allegedly knew that PCBs were toxic for decades but continued production of the profitable compound anyway.

According to CVN:

Frieling showed jurors internal Monsanto documents dating back to the 1950’s that he claimed would prove the company knew for decades that PCBs posed a substantial public health risk but falsely represented them as being safe.

Freiling told jurors it was easy to link the PCBs in Dauber and Di Costanzo’s bodies to Monsanto, because the company produced 99 percent of the compounds sold in the United States. He claimed Monsanto intentionally avoided long-term safety testing on PCBs and instead publicized the results of short-term tests which didn’t allow enough time for negative health effects to become evident.

In response, Monsanto attorney Anthony Upshaw of Chicago-based law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP argued that it could not be definitively proven that PCBs caused the plaintiffs’ cancer and that many people who have the same amounts of PCBs in their bodies never suffer any adverse effects, CVN reported.

“The evidence simply doesn’t support the assertion that the historic use of PCB products was the cause of the plaintiffs’ harms,” Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Marie Lord told CVN. “We are confident that the jury will conclude, as past juries have done, that the former Monsanto Company is not responsible for the alleged injuries.”

She also added that Monsanto’s involvement in the trial stems from contractual obligations associated with former chemical businesses that operated under the company’s name, and that Monsanto today is focused solely on agriculture.

The current trial is expected to run through the end of March. Previous rulings over PCBs lawsuits, however, have ruled in favor of Monsanto. CVN noted that a Los Angeles jury and a Missouri state court jury handed the company wins in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Incidentally, a current House bill could give Monsanto permanent immunity from liability for injuries caused by PCBs. The New York Times reported last month that Republicans in Congress have inserted a clause into the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reauthorization bill that would effectively exempt Monsanto from liability for injuries caused by PCBs.

Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has sparred over PCBs for three decades, wrote this week that the “so-called ‘Monsanto Rider’ would shield the chemical colossus from thousands of lawsuits by cities, towns, school districts and individuals, who have been injured by exposure to PCBs.”

“If Monsanto gets its way, the American people will pay a high price for corporate greed and political corruption,” Kennedy said.

Full Article – https://ecowatch.com/2016/03/15/jury-decide-pcbs-caused-cancer/