Medicines Made in India Set Off Safety Worries

NEW DELHI — India, the second-largest exporter of over-the-counter and prescription drugs to the United States, is coming under increased scrutiny by American regulators for safety lapses, falsified drug test results and selling fake medicines.


Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, arrived in India this week to express her growing unease with the safety of Indian medicines because of “recent lapses in quality at a handful of pharmaceutical firms.”


India’s pharmaceutical industry supplies 40 percent of over-the-counter and generic prescription drugs consumed in the United States, so the increased scrutiny could have profound implications for American consumers.


F.D.A. investigators are blitzing Indian drug plants, financing the inspections with some of the roughly $300 million in annual fees from generic drug makers collected as part of a 2012 law requiring increased scrutiny of overseas plants. The agency inspected 160 Indian drug plants last year, three times as many as in 2009. The increased scrutiny has led to a flood of new penalties, including half of the warning letters the agency issued last year to drug makers.


Dr. Hamburg was met by Indian officials and executives who, shocked by recent F.D.A. export bans of generic versions of popular medicines — such as the acne drug Accutane,...


[Click here to see the rest of this post]




Found on



Related articles
India to flag market access of drugs and spices with US (vancouverdesi.com)
Indian Regulators to Shadow U.S. FDA on Plant Inspections (bloomberg.com)
A California Lesson: How to Kill Workers' Compensation Pill By Pill (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Prescription-Drug Coupons - No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Intimidation: Missouri Senate passes online database for workers' comp

Privacy is a basic premises of workers' compensation law and the State of Missouri is taking a major step to eliminate it and intimidate injure worker. Today's post is shared from therolladailynews.com An online database of workers' compensation claims would be created under legislation passed by the Missouri Senate. Under the measure, SB526, passed on Thursday, businesses could provide a potential employee's name and Social Security number to identify the date of workers' compensation claims and whether the claim is open or closed. Sponsoring Sen. Mike Cunningham, a Rogersville Republican, says the information is already available but only by written request. Supporters say the bill would help businesses control workers' compensation costs. A similar bill was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon last year. He cited privacy concerns and called it "an affront to the privacy of our citizens." Senators voted 26-7 to send the measure to the House.

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Senate fails to revive workers' comp bill for first responders (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Oklahoma Work Comp Opt-Out System Under Legal Attack (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Work Comp Lost Focus (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Bill limiting workers' comp claims by athletes is sent to governor (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Missouri Further Defines Permanent Total Disability (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Worker Privacy Concerns : Employers' Access to Employees' Prior Worker's Compensation Claims (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Rescinding the Cuts to Veteran's Pensions Was In the Cards From the Start

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

December's budget deal between Paul Ryan and Patty Murray included a bit of relief from the 2011 sequestration cuts, with the relief split evenly between domestic and military budgets. That even split was one of the guiding principles of the deal. But part of the military relief was paid for by $7 billion in cuts to veterans' pensions, something that immediately prompted a storm of protest and, eventually, a move to rescind the cuts. Jared Bernstein comments: True, that’s not huge bucks in the scheme of things. But the violation of this budget principle should not be taken lightly. A key point of the budget machinations that brought us to where we are today is that automatic spending cuts should be split between evenly between defense and non-defense (forget for a moment, that it’s not the discretionary side of the budget that’s responsible for our longer term fiscal challenges anyway). If Congress starts stealing from domestic programs to boost defense, it will unfairly and unwisely exacerbate already unsustainable pressures on domestic spending. I'd take a slightly different lesson from this: Democrats got snookered. Only a little bit, and they knew they were being played, but they still got snookered. It was obvious from the start that cuts to veterans' benefits would be unpopular and unlikely to stand, but Democrats agreed to them anyway in order to get the budget deal across the finish line. Maybe that was the right thing to do, but it was no...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• In Detroit Ruling, Threats to Promises and Assumptions (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Government Shutdown (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• My Next Move for Veterans is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan battle lung trouble upon return home (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Police Salaries and Pensions Push California City to Brink (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Can the NFL Discriminate Against a Gay Player?

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Ref: Daniel Goncalves/Cal Sport Media/ZUMA; Flag: Mike Flippo/Shutterstock; Rainbow: Rikke/Shutterstock. Photoillustration by Matt Connolly. University of Missouri All-American defensive end Michael Sam shocked the sports world Sunday when he announced that he is gay. The National Football League has never had an openly gay player, and the timing of his announcement—just weeks before the league's so-called combine, when draft-eligible players like Sam are put through the paces in front of scouts and team executives—has been hailed as incredibly brave. But as Kevin Drum noted Sunday night, a group of NFL front-office types had a different take. Several team executives anonymously questioned Sam's talent and pro prospects in a SI.com article published after his announcement. Sample line, from a personnel assistant: "I don't think football is ready for [an openly gay player] just yet. In the coming decade or two, it's going to be acceptable, but at this point in time it's still a man's-man game." Worse still, some of them argued that teams would lower Sam on their draft boards, or not draft him at all, simply because he's gay. Is that legal? Do state and local laws protect potential draftees from discrimination based on sexual orientation? And what about the NFL's own nondiscrimination policy? Here's a brief explainer: What sorts of nondiscrimination laws are on the books? Because the federal Employee Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) died in the House last...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Missouri Further Defines Permanent Total Disability

"The PTD test is whether the worker can compete in the open labor market.
Schussler, 393 S.W.3d at 96. A worker who cannot return to any normal or
reasonable employment is totally disabled; she need not be inert or completely
inactive. Id. “The key question is whether any employer in the ordinary course of
business would reasonably be expected to hire the worker in his or her current
physical condition.” Id. "

 MARLENE STEWART, Respondent vs. CLINT ZWIEFEL, TREASURER OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI AS CUSTODIAN OF THE SECOND INJURY FUND, Appellant
No. SD32827 )  FILED: February 10, 2014 

Related articles

• Occupational pulmonary case dismissed by court for lack of evidence (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Careful What You Wish For: Denying Worker's Compensation for Undocumented Workers (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• NJ Senate to Vote on S613 - Workers Compensation Cost of Living Benefit Increase (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• NJ COLA Bill Passed by Senate (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Study: Calif. workers compensation overhaul too new to parse (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for the Economy (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

FBI Offers $10,000 Rewards to Stem Laser-Pointer Incidents

Today's post was shared by WSJ Law Blog and comes from blogs.wsj.com

The FBI has a long history of offering rewards for terrorists, bank robbers, and all sorts of scoundrels. Now it’s offering money to catch people misusing laser pointers. Twelve different offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday they will pay $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest for pointing lasers at aircraft – a dangerous practice that can temporarily blind pilots. The frequency of such incidents has risen greatly in recent years. In 2005, the year the FBI began tracking the “laser strikes,” it recorded 283. In 2013 it reported 3,960, or nearly 11 per day. “Shining a laser into the cockpit of an aircraft can temporarily blind a pilot, jeopardizing the safety of everyone on board,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “We applaud our colleagues at the Justice Department for aggressively prosecuting aircraft laser incidents and we will continue to use civil penalties to further deter this dangerous activity.” The pilot program offering rewards for information leading to arrests of individuals deliberately aiming such pointers at planes will run for 60 days, officials said. “It is important that people understand that this is a criminal act with potentially deadly repercussions,’’ said Ron Hosko, head of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. The FBI offices offering the rewards are in Albuquerque, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City,...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Breathe Deep....on the airplane OR not? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• California state Sen. Ron Calderon accepted $88,000 in bribes, FBI affidavit alleges (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Ex-NJ Mayor and Insurance Agent Sentenced On Charges Involving Workers' Compensation Insurance Scheme (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• FAA to Evaluate Obese Pilots for Sleep Disorder (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Schneider Electric Recalls APC Surge Protectors Due to Fire Hazard (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Chevron pleads no contest to criminal charges stemming from Richmond refinery fire (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Being Professional

Today's guest post is shared from David DePaolo from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com The practice of workers' compensation law is relatively relaxed, at least in California, but I suspect the same in most of the rest of the country where it is an administrative system. That's what attracted me to the practice in the first place nearly 30 years ago. Collegiality, informality - the emphasis was on substance over form, and the primary mission of the practice - delivering benefits to those entitled and discriminating against those not so entitled - took the forefront over everything else. But relaxed doesn't mean sloppy, and does requires a higher level of self-discipline. Unfortunately, too many people don't have the discipline to be let loose in an informal, relaxed legal system. Too many need more concrete barriers, more defined lines; perhaps because these folks lack the integrity or control to handle the responsibility that comes with such an insouciant practice. Or perhaps these folks are, themselves, just sloppy and inconsiderate of the rules. Rules - these are in place to make sure that everyone is playing on the same field, to keep anyone from having an unfair procedural advantage, and also to put checks and balances on the costs associated with litigation from the institutional perspective. The California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board collected almost $300,000 in sanctions last year − three times the amount collected in 2012. The WCAB had been warning...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• OK's True Cost Control Feature (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Legal Fees and Reform (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Wah, Wah, Wah (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• One Claim Going OTOC (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)