Best Whistleblower Movie of All Time is the Real-Life One

October 21st, 2010. By AbiK

Seeing a Whistleblower movie is a fun night out. Seeing the real folks who inspired the Whistleblower movies…well, it’s the difference between defrosting a tub of Cool-Whip or grabbing a pint of heavy cream and an iSi Profi Whipped Cream Maker and getting the real deal! (don’t ask me where that one came from)

I think you’ll appreciate whistleblowers and whistleblowing a bit more when you check out this video—produced earlier this year by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) in conjunction with the Paley Center and Participant Media. Guests include some famous whistleblowers—including Frank Serpico—who provide some very real-life perspective on what it’s like to be a whistleblower.

Is Your Doctor Getting Cash from Big Pharma? Find Out

October 20th, 2010. By AbiK

It’s been a good year for Dr. Firhaad Ismail. Indeed! Financially speaking, that is. See, according to the info over at ProPublica, in their Dollars for Docs report, Dr. Ismail took in no less than $303,558 from big pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline (GSK…the folks who brought you Avandia and Paxil), Eli LIlly, and Merck.

Now, Dr. Ismail is just one of 384 doctors nationwide who’ve received payment from big pharma. Ismail is based in Vegas (clearly, if ProPublica’s involved, what goes on in Vegas is not staying in Vegas) and his specialty is Endocrinology and Metabolism. And he appears to do a fair amount of consulting on the topic. On big pharma’s dime.

Dr. Ismail may be the best damn doctor there is in his specialty. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the ProPublica report indicates that Dr. Ismail received a total of $209,400 from GSK alone. Recall what area of practice Dr. Ismail is in…Endocrinology. What does Endocrinology deal with? Well, diabetes for one. And last I checked, Avandia is a type 2 diabetes drug made by GSK.

I’m just putting on the table what’s already out there. I’m not saying there’s any unsavory relationship here…but I the jaded skeptic in me does raise a little eyebrow…

Needless to say, I’ve been checking out my own doctors over at ProPublica.com. You can, too. Just hop over to Dollars for Docs and do a search for your doctor’s name, by state. You can also find a full list there of all the doctors nationwide.

Let us know what you find…and if you think doctors receiving funds from big pharma presents a conflict of interest.

She Kicks, He Scores…at the Strip Club (it’s Tortelicious)

October 19th, 2010. By LucyC

Welcome to Totally Tortelicious—a review of some of the more bizarre legal stories making news—and there’s certainly no shortage of them. 

Talk about getting some booty. A man in Florida who alleges he was injured at a strip club in West Palm Beach when an exotic dancer kicked him in the face, has been awarded a $650,000 settlement.

Michael Ireland received the out-of-court settlement after claiming he suffered a punctured eye socket, broken facial bones and permanent double vision as a result of getting booted in the face by a dancer named “Suki.”

Suki’s side of the story, however, is slightly different. Cheetah (yes—that’s the name of the establishment) boss Rod Kimbrough, said last year that the dancer in question is a “very nice, young small girl” who only kicked Ireland because she had been smacked first. This according to MyFoxOrlando.com. (btw, you can see earlier news coverage of the mess here on this video…)

“A patron violently slapped the young woman on her buttocks and she was walking around the top of the bar and I guess out of a natural response she turned around and kicked him,” Kimbrough said. 

As kicking patrons, to my limited knowledge I will emphasize here, is likely not considered the best way to entice customers into spending their money, I think something likely happened to prompt that action. Perhaps it was all in a night’s work? 

Wheee! Let’s Ride the [Baggage] Carousel! Many’s the time I’ve thought of doing this—not for the fun of it—but to try and expedite reunion with my luggage. Good thing I never actually tried it—riding on an airport luggage carousel or conveyor belt, that is. 

However, 40-year old Bradley Ray Bromelow did not, apparently, give the idea a second Read the rest of this entry »

Veterans: Understanding Veterans Medical Malpractice

October 19th, 2010. By Kristine B

Anyone who has dealt with Veterans Affairs can tell you that the system can be complex and maddening, much like so many other government-operated systems. Dealing with Veterans Affairs medical malpractice can be an exercise in frustration, for many reasons. Today, Pleading Ignorance aims to shed some light on VA medical malpractice.

First, the lawyer stuff: not every attorney will take medical malpractice claims against the VA. Why? Because when you sue the VA you are suing the federal government, and such a lawsuit has its own special rules and regulations. So, if you feel you have a medical malpractice case against the VA, you have to choose an attorney carefully. (Note, when you fill out a claim form here at LawyersAndSettlements.com, the claim form goes to an attorney who specializes in that area of litigation.)

Now, you might think that only incidents that occur at VA medical centers are covered by VA medical malpractice, but that’s not necessarily true. If you were sent by a VA doctor to an off-base provider, you would still be filing a case against the VA because the medical care was provided off-base pursuant to a VA directive. So, if the VA played a role in your medical care—even if it was to send you to an off-base provider—you might still have a VA medical malpractice claim.

To be eligible, the victim—the person who suffered the medical malpractice—must have been registered with the VA system, received treatment from the VA (or had the VA direct them to off-base treatment) and suffered injury or death because of negligence in the system.

It is not only veterans who fall under the VA directive, however. Any of their dependants Read the rest of this entry »

Giddy with Glee: FDA Got One Right with SSRI Drug

October 18th, 2010. By AbiK

Or so it appears.

A little bomb just dropped in the form of a report out in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) regarding the antidepressant drug reboxetine. Reboxetine—brand name Edronax—is one of the drugs classified as a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, or SSRI, and it’s manufactured by Pfizer. According to the report, data from industry-sponsored (biased?) trials that have been published in peer-reviewed journals are misleading when it comes to reboxetine’s safety and efficacy.

How did this happen? Well, according to an article over at medscape.com, the BMJ reports that “74% of the data on patients who took part in the trials of reboxetine were not published because the findings were negative and that the data that were published about reboxetine overestimated its benefits and underestimated its harm.”

Huh?

I feel like I’m sitting in a management meeting—not at LawyersAndSettlements.com mind you—where we’ve just received the results of an employee feedback survey—that happen to suck—and we’re all trying to figure out how to save face and mitigate any fallout. What to do? LIE! Or, simply be selective in what information gets revealed…

So re: reboxetine, little bothersome details like the trial revealed that there was no significant difference in remission between reboxetine and a placebo, and that reboxetine was found to be inferior to other SSRIs such as fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil) and citalopram (Celexa), just never hit the light of day. Until now.

But here is what makes me giddy with glee: reboxetine had been approved for marketing in the UK, Germany and “other European countries” according to the medscape.com article….”but did not win approval in the United States.”

Looks like the FDA got one right! Can it be so…?