Trial ordered on Fenphen settlement
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:00:47 GMTBy SAMUEL MAULL, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A law firm that negotiated a huge settlement with the makers of the diet drug fen-phen has been ordered to stand trial over whether it manipulated the deal in a way that increased the lawyers' share of the money.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Ramos said Wednesday he was ordering a trial because of questions about whether the firm, Napoli Bern Ripka LLP, violated ethical rules in apportioning shares of the settlement money.
Napoli Bern sued drug maker American Home Products in 2001 on behalf of more than 5,000 of the 6 million former users of fen-phen, which the Food and Drug Administration had recalled after studies showed it might cause heart valve damage.
The law firm settled with American Home, though the amount and terms of the settlement were confidential. The New York Law Journal has reported that the amount has been estimated to exceed $1 billion.
Napoli Bern's lawyer Anthony Gentile said the judge was wrong to order a trial.
"There was never any evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever," he said. "There have been no allegations of wrongdoing from any of the clients. Not one."
In ordering the trial, Ramos cited an affidavit by Stephen David Murakami, a former Napoli Bern lawyer who said the firm lied to clients about how their shares of the settlement had been determined.
Murakami alleged that a major factor in a client's share was whether he or she had retained Napoli Bern directly at the outset or had been referred by another firm, the ruling said.
"Claimants who were Napoli firm clients were offered disproportionately larger settlements because the firm unfairly inflated settlement offers for its clients so that the attorneys' fees earned by the firm would be greater," the judge ed Murakami's affidavit as saying.
Napoli Bern said the settlement had been inspected for fairness by a former law school professor and a former New York state judge, but Ramos said he could not tell from the record whether the law firm had been forthright with them.
American Home made the "fen" in the drug cocktail fen-phen, a drug called fenfluramine. It sold the drug under the brand name Pondimin along with a chemical cousin called Redux.
Singapore antismoking ads disturb kids
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 06:36:13 GMTSINGAPORE - Singapore's graphic anti-smoking TV ads are working — but now will be aired only at night following complaints that they're too disturbing for children, officials said Thursday.
In one of the government Health Promotion Board's ads, a sunken-eyed woman with cracked lips and brownish, deformed teeth appears under the headline: "Quitting is hard. Not quitting, is harder."
The board said the three-month campaign that began March 20 will continue, but the ads now will only be shown after 8 p.m local time and will be preceded by a message warning viewers of the graphic content.
"The Health Promotion Board has received feedback that our advertisement may be too disturbing to some children," the board's chief executive, Lam Pin Woon, wrote in an open letter published Thursday in The Straits Times newspaper.
"Since the launch of our campaign, we have seen a fivefold increase in the number of calls to QuitLine from smokers desiring to quit smoking," Lam wrote. "We encourage parents to take this opportunity to educate their children on the fatal consequences of smoking."
As part of the campaign, the board also has posted two actors — posing as a doctor and a woman hacking and coughing on her deathbed — in its bustling downtown business district at lunchtime.
Like Hong Kong, tightly controlled Singapore has banned smoking in most public places.
The city-state is well known for government-led public behavior modification campaigns that have included pushes for courteous driving, showing up on time for weddings, keeping public toilets clean and speaking proper English.
China warns officials on family planning
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:47:35 GMTBEIJING - Communist Party officials in China's most populous province have been told they will not be promoted if they have more children than the law allows, state media said.
China's family planning policy — implemented in the late 1970s — limits urban couples to one child and rural families to two to control the population and conserve natural resources.
In Henan in central China, the provincial Communist Party boss warned party officials they would be banned from serving as department leaders or earning promotions if they had more children than they were allowed, the Xinhua News Agency reported late Wednesday.
"Any mistake in population work would have an irreversible impact on the rise of central China. We must make a low birth rate the top priority in our population and family planning work," Xu Guangchun was ed as saying.
Henan, which has more people than Germany, has vowed to keep its population to 101 million by 2010 and 107 million by 2020, Xinhua said.
Population control laws vary from province to province in China, with some allowing couples who are both single children themselves to have a second child, but Xinhua said Henan does not.
China has 1.3 billion people — 20 percent of the world's population. The government has pledged to keep the population under 1.36 billion by 2010 and under 1.45 billion by 2020.
Gift cards proposed as health incentive
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:03:13 GMTST. PAUL, Minn. - Feeling good? Go shopping. Democrats in the Minnesota state Senate want to give publicly insured patients $20 gift cards to stores such as Target as an incentive to follow their doctor's orders.
Sen. Linda Berglin, who leads the health budget panel, is betting that it will pay off for the state to sink $1 million into incentives for diabetics who control their blood sugar and smokers who quit.
"It's not a huge amount of money, but I think it'll have a lot of impact," said Berglin. "These quality guidelines are not reached simply by the doctor. There has to be the patient involved in it, too."
Gov. Tim Pawlenty last year established the QCare program, which offers bonuses to health plans and providers that score well on treating costly chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
Giving out gift cards might bring the state closer to achieving the QCare goals, Berglin said. The proposal would apply to patients covered by subsidized programs including the MinnesotaCare plan for the working poor.
It was unclear Wednesday whether there would be restrictions on what gift card recipients could buy with them.
