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December 2009 Newsletter |
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 | Betraying the Public Trust: Pharmaceutical companies unethically take advantage of the public confidence in medical professionals to boost sales of their product, through the practice of medical ghostwriting.
By JAMES M. KENNA, ESQ. |
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The general public and many medical professionals rely on editorials, review articles, and research papers appearing in revered publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, as their primary source of information for new drugs and devices. The pharmaceutical companies and their sales representatives cannot be expected to provide in-depth scientific analysis because direct-to-consumer advertisements and company sales representatives tend to focus on the positive, while minimizing and sometimes failing to disclose unfavorable information about the product. But, many of these so-called 'scholarly' articles that appear to be authored by prominent academics and medical professionals are nothing more than propaganda produced by the pharmaceutical companies to increase profits.
[Read More]
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| A Return To Conley Is Needed In Civil Rights Actions
By MICHAEL FORMAN, ESQ. |
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The Supreme Court's trend towards stricter pleading standards in civil cases threatens to severely restrict a civil rights plaintiff's constitutional right of access to the legal system. Particularly for members of minority or disadvantaged groups who could be indigent or unrepresented, federal courts provide a forum in which to seek redress for harmful or discriminatory conduct committed in violation of constitutional or federal statutory rights. Fortunately for these litigants, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were supportive of such litigation, at least in a general sense. As stated in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (U.S. 1957), the federal "notice pleading" standard did not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he based his claim. Rather, Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 only required that a plaintiff provide a short and plain statement of the claim showing an entitlement to relief, in order to give the defendant fair notice of the claim and the grounds upon which it rests. Id. Under Conley, civil rights claimants could effectively bring a claim and conduct discovery without being forced to provide the factual details underlying their claim at the pleading stage.
[Read More]
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| Vaccines and Autism: A Real Connection or a Social Frenzy?
By MARYAM DANISHWAR, ESQ. |
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Concerns over vaccine damage have arisen at a time when parents have unprecedented access to information and platforms to share their views. While the medical professionals have questioned the link between the vaccinations and the claimed injuries, parents who believe their children were damaged by vaccines have refused to take no for an answer.
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