FDA Adds GI Warning to Benicar Label

The FDA ordered the maker of the blood pressure drug olmesartan (Benicar) to add a warning about the risk of an intestinal condition known as sprue-like enteropathy to the drug’s label.

The connection between sprue-like enteropathy and olmesartan was first reported in June 2012 by Mayo Clinic researchers who, from 2008-2010, had seen 22 patients with symptoms suggestive of celiac disease but antibody blood tests that did not support the diagnosis.

Later in October 2012, researchers at the American College of Gastroenterology meeting noted that olmesartan, an angiotensin II receptor blocker, or ARB, had been linked to another 40 such cases of sprue-like enteropathy.

 

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Hypertension/40278

BP and the fight to Disparage Lawyers

From Take Justice Back:

BP has orchestrated a campaign to avoid accountability and delay justice for Gulf Coast small business owners for years.  In its latest move, BP has dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars in a PR campaign purchasing full-page color ads in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that accuses some small businesses of taking money “they don’t deserve.”  

BP also sent letters warning lawyers for many Gulf Coast businesses that it may seek to recover some of the settlement if its appeal before the Fifth Circuit is successful – to this date BP has lost every similar appeal.

 

As American Association for Justice President Mary Alice McLarty has said, “BP needs to stop the backpedaling and live up to the settlement its corporate lawyers negotiated and agreed to.  BP is not a victim of small businesses, judges or even trial lawyers; they are still just a corporate felon who pled guilty to killing 11 rig workers, polluted the Gulf and ruined the livelihoods of thousands of Americans.”

Here are the facts:

• BP pled guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and lying to the Federal Government, stemming from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.
• BP is a convicted felon. 
• BP was on probation for three prior disasters at the time of the blowout.
• BP has been suspended from doing business with the US government for a lack of corporate integrity.
• For nearly two years BP’s team of corporate lawyers negotiated, co-authored, agreed to, and sought Court approval of every word in the Settlement Agreement.