Protecting What's Right

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The popular Johnson & Johnson brand birth control, Ortha Evra, has been linked to strokes and blood clots at an alarmingly high rate. Studies of users in a 2002-2004 Johnson & Johnson study, made public in this MSNBC news piece, show that women utilizing the patch are twelve times more likely to have a stroke and eighteen more times likely to suffer from blood clots than women who use the pill as birth control.
Heightened levels of estrogen are a suspected cause; equally dangerous appears to be the continuous flow of estrogen from the patch. Recently obtained documents showing the departure of a Johnson & Johnson vice president suggest that this venerable manufacturer of baby products consciously decided to downplay Ortha Evra’s risks in an effort to increase market share.

BP asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans to require virtually all oil spill claimants to exhaust the economic damage claims process run by third-party administrator Kenneth Feinberg before they are allowed to sue.

Requiring claimants to first present their claims to the Feinberg Fund could delay the start of litigation against oil giant BP for months while administrators sort out which claims qualify for payment.

Judge Barbier has scheduled a hearing on BP’s proposal for Sept. 16. BP’s request is opposed by most spill claimants.

An arbitrator has ruled that Dimitrios Biller, a former Toyota attorney turned whistleblower, can submit internal Toyota documents in court to prove his claim that the company instructed him to hide evidence of product defects from the public.

Biller, who handled product liability lawsuits for Toyota, claims the automaker regularly hid evidence of safety defects from regulators and the public. As part of a “civil racketeering” suit against Toyota, Biller has sought to submit as evidence what he claims are four boxes of internal Toyota documents that prove he was asked to hide facts from plaintiffs during product liability lawsuits.

Toyota sought to keep the documents under seal, but the arbitrator in the case, retired judge Gary Taylor, ruled last Thursday that the documents were admissible under a “crime-fraud” exception.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found benzene and methane in wells and in groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming, agency officials said in a report.

At a community meeting with well owners, EPA officials revealed Tuesday they found low levels of petroleum compounds in 17 of 19 drinking water wells sampled, and that nearby shallow groundwater was contaminated with high levels of petroleum compounds, such as benzene.

The affected well owners were advised not to drink the contaminated water.

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