Category: health

NEW YORK, May 30 (Reuters) – Bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma can shield its owners, members of the wealthy Sackler family, from opioid lawsuits in exchange for a $6 billion contribution to the company’s broader bankruptcy settlement, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that U.S. bankruptcy law allows legal protections for non-bankrupt parties, like the Sacklers, in extraordinary circumstances. In a majority opinion written by 2nd Circuit Judge Eunice…

Covid showed us how corrupt the medical establishment has become not only in America but worldwide. Doctors know where their bread is buttered and rarely speak out of school or provide advice based on their own independent research. They will support almost any government health narrative if that’s what it takes to make sure the money continues to flow, even if it means violating their oath to “do no harm.” Next in line for top honors in terms of corruption,…

Residents across parts of the northwestern United States are under air quality alerts this weekend after smoke from a spate of Canadian wildfires drifted south across the border. Thick plumes of smoke from blazes in the Canadian province of Alberta crossed into multiple states including Montana, Colorado, Idaho and Utah. But a Pacific cold front moving into the area toward the end of the weekend was expected to bring rain and wind that could push the smoke away. Officials in…

GENEVA – Rising temperatures are making it increasingly difficult to reach global health goals. There is a risk of more than nine million climate-related deaths each year by the end of the century, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). “All aspects of health are affected by climate change – from clean air, water and soil to food systems and livelihoods,” the WHO said in its annual World Health Statistics report released on Friday. “Further delay in tackling climate change…

  NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Legal arguments over women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion move to a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday, in a case challenging a Food and Drug Administration decision made more than two decades ago. The closely watched case is likely to wind up at the Supreme Court, which already has intervened to keep the drug, mifepristone, available while the legal fight winds through the courts. Three…

The number of people in the UK not working because of long-term sickness has risen to a record high partly because of ongoing health problems related to the coronavirus pandemic, official figures showed Tuesday. The Office for National Statistics found that 2.55 million people were not able to work in the three months to March, which is over 6% of the country’s working population. That was up nearly 100,000 on the previous quarter. The agency said the pandemic is likely…

PARIS – The traces of genetic material that humans constantly shed wherever they go could soon be used to track individual people, or even whole ethnic groups, scientists said on Monday, warning of a looming “ethical quagmire”.

A recently developed technique can glean a huge amount of information from tiny samples of genetic material called environmental DNA, or eDNA, that humans and animals leave behind everywhere – including in the air.

The tool could lead to a range of medical and scientific advances, and could even help track down criminals, according to the authors of a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

But it also poses a vast range of concerns around consent, privacy and surveillance, they added.

Pharmacy services provider PharMerica has disclosed a massive data breach impacting over 5.8 million patients, exposing their medical data to hackers.

PharMerica is a pharmacy services provider in 50 U.S. states, operating 180 local and 70,000 backup pharmacies, and serving 3,100 medical facilities nationwide.

According to a data breach notification submitted to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, hackers breached PharMerica’s system on March 12th, 2023, stealing the full names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers (SSNs), medications, and health insurance information of 5,815,591 people.

The firm discovered the intrusion on March 14th, 2023, and its investigation determined on March 21st that client data had been stolen. However, notices of a data breach were sent to impacted individuals only last Friday, May 12th, 2023.

Construction workers build along State Road 836 in 2018 in Miami. HB 1191 would compel the Florida Transportation Department to study using phosphogypsum in paving projects. Roads in Florida could soon include phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — under a bill lawmakers have sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Conservation groups are urging DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and put road construction crews at a higher risk of cancer. Here’s…

The United States on Wednesday approved the world’s first vaccine for the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), the culmination of a decades-long hunt to protect vulnerable people from the common illness.

Drugmaker GSK’s Arexvy was green-lighted for adults aged 60 and older, with similar shots from other makers including Pfizer and Moderna expected to follow soon.

“Today’s approval of the first RSV vaccine is an important public health achievement to prevent a disease which can be life-threatening,” said senior United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official Peter Marks in a statement.

The decision “marks a turning point in our effort to reduce the significant burden of RSV,” added Mr Tony Wood, GSK’s chief scientific officer.

RSV is a common virus that normally causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can be serious for infants and the elderly, as well as those with weak immune systems and underlying conditions.

The U.S. government has sounded the alarm about a critical software vulnerability found in genomics giant Illumina’s DNA sequencing devices, which hackers can exploit to modify or steal patients’ sensitive medical data.

In separate advisories released on Thursday, U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that the security flaw — tracked as CVE-2023-1968 with the maximum vulnerability severity rating of 10 out of 10 — allows hackers to remotely access an affected device over the internet without needing a password. If exploited, the bug could allow hackers to compromise devices to produce incorrect or altered results, or none at all.

Pfizer Inc applied to be registered as an importer of controlled substance Pentobarbital

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The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in the appeal of two False Claims Act (FCA) cases from the Seventh Circuit that called into question the level of intent, or scienter, required to establish corporate liability under the FCA for “knowingly” overbilling the government for goods or services.  The Court’s eventual decision may have widespread…… Continue Reading
The post Healthcare Companies and Companies Doing Business with the US Government – Supreme Court Appears Likely to Clarify False Claims Act (FCA) Knowledge Requirements appeared first on Global Investigations & Compliance Review.