J&J Duped Arkansas Doctors Over Risperdal, Lawyer Tells Jury - BusinessWeek

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (JNJ) officials repeatedly misled Arkansas doctors about the safety of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, and the drugmaker should be held responsible for those deceptions, a lawyer said.

J&J’s Janssen unit made misleading claims about Risperdal’s health risks and effectiveness in a letter to more than 6,200 Arkansas doctors, violating the state’s deceptive-trade practices law, one of the state’s lawyers told a jury in Little Rock today. Arkansas is seeking more than $1.25 billion in penalties over the campaign.

“By the time this case is over, we will prove to you that Janssen lied about Risperdal’s dangers just to make money,” Fletcher Trammell, an attorney for Arkansas, told jurors in opening statements in the state-court trial over J&J’s Risperdal marketing tactics.

It’s the fifth jury trial over states’ claims that J&J, the second-biggest (JNJ) maker of health products, hid Risperdal’s diabetes risks and tricked Medicaid regulators into paying millions of dollars more than they should have for the medicine. J&J ended the most recent trial in Texas with a $158 million settlement in January. The Texas settlement won court approval today.

J&J has said it provided proper warnings about diabetes risks on Risperdal’s label and that U.S. regulators approved those disclosures. Efforts to tie labeling claims to Medicaid fraud should fail because “compliance with federal drug labeling statutes and regulations is not a condition of payment or participating in” a state Medicaid program, J&J said in a July 2010 court filing.

Janssen didn’t engage in deceptive trade practices and didn’t harm anyone, James Simpson, a company lawyer, told the jury today.

“The state will not present any evidence that a single person was injured while taking Risperdal,” Simpson said in his opening statement. “There will not be any evidence that the state of Arkansas lost a penny in paying for Risperdal for thousands of Arkansas citizens who needed the drug.”

Risperdal’s global sales peaked at $4.5 billion in 2007 and declined after the company lost patent protection. The drug generated $3.4 billion in sales in 2008, or 5.4 percent of New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J’s revenue (JNJ), according to company filings. Sales of the drug fell to $527 million in 2010, according to earnings reports.

Along with contending that J&J and Janssen defrauded the Medicaid program by failing to properly outline the antipsychotic medicine’s risks on the warning label, Arkansas officials allege J&J officials deceptively marketed the drug as safer and better than competing medicines.

The state also argues that the companies marketed the drug for “unapproved uses, including various symptoms in children and the elderly” after being warned by federal authorities to halt such sales, according to the state’s suit.

The U.S. has been investigating Risperdal sales practices since 2004, including allegations that the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses, J&J executives said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing (JNJ) last year.

The U.S. Justice Department is demanding that J&J pay about $1.8 billion to resolve the civil claims by federal regulators and some state attorneys general, people familiar with the settlement talks said this month.

Arkansas is asking the jury to find J&J and Janssen liable for illegally marketing Risperdal to dupe state officials into overpaying for the drug.

The state has said it will then ask Judge Tim Fox to fine J&J at least $5,000 for each prescription affected by the Risperdal marketing campaign. Arkansas says at least 250,000 prescriptions may have resulted from illegal marketing. That would amount to a fine of at least $1.25 billion.

The state said it also will seek damages for misleading statements made in a 2003 letter to Arkansas doctors touting Risperdal. Arkansas said it will also seek penalties for more than 19,000 sales calls in which J&J representatives allegedly used the letter or made other deceptive statements about the drug.

Trammell, the state’s lawyer, said that J&J and Janssen would argue at trial that Risperdal is effective as an antipsychotic.

“And it’s true, we don’t dispute it,” Trammell told jurors. “But that doesn’t give anybody a pass to lie about dangers. Just because the drug works that doesn’t mean they can break the law by lying about the drug’s risks.”

Simpson said Risperdal’s risks are minimal. By 2002, after “12.7 million patient years” of Risperdal use, only 311 adverse blood sugar events were known worldwide, a rate of 0.002 percent, he said.

“If my math is good, .002 is 10 feet in a mile. In other words,” he said, taking a few steps toward the jury box, ’’it’s that much in a mile. Ten feet. That’s how rare these incidents happen.’’ The rate of adverse events hasn’t changed since then, he said.

J&J and Janssen have been sued by 11 states seeking reimbursement for Medicaid or other public funds paid on Risperdal prescriptions. The lawsuits allege that J&J promoted the drug for dementia, mood and anxiety disorders and other unapproved uses, or downplayed risks.

In June 2010, a judge threw out Pennsylvania’s suit over the Risperdal marketing campaign in the middle of a trial. An appeal of that ruling is set to be heard next month.

Four months later, jurors in Louisiana ordered the drugmaker to pay almost $258 million to state officials for making misleading claims about the drug’s safety. J&J has appealed.

In June 2011 a South Carolina judge ordered J&J to pay $327 million in penalties for deceptively marketing the medicine. The company has appealed that ruling.

The case is State of Arkansas v. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., CV07-15345, Pulaski County Circuit Court (Little Rock).

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan, at mcfisk@bloomberg.net; Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware, at jfeeley@bloomberg.net; Eric Francis in Little Rock, Arkansas, at eric.francis@yahoo.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

View the original article here

Pickton tells reporter to pose as lawyer to get visit - CTV.ca

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

From inside the walls of a maximum-security prison in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, serial killer Robert Pickton offers a suggestion to a reporter interested in visiting him for an interview.

"If you are looking for a story, 'boy do I have one for you!!!"' Pickton writes in a letter to The Canadian Press.

"Tell them (prison staff) when making appointment by telephone that you are my new defence lawyer being appointed to this case, in defending Mr. Pickton's rights."

The bizarre ruse is Pickton's solution to what he describes as a "certain stumbling block" -- an apparent restriction that has kept the killer away from reporters since his arrival at Kent Institution, east of Vancouver. He was transferred to Kent after his final appeal for the second-degree murders of six women failed in 2010.

In the one-page letter, written by hand in tidy block letters, Pickton says he's willing to sit down for an interview, but he suggests the only way to see him is by becoming an impostor.

If the scheme works, prepare for a long session, Pickton warns, and best to bring along an actual lawyer for good measure.

"To get an upper hand on this particular case, plan for a four-hour interview to exchange information, as we have much to talk about to fully understand this case," writes Pickton, who has carefully underlined what appear to be his most important points.

"Also, bring another lawyer with you as a junior lawyer to help you with the workload. You need one."

The Canadian Press wrote to Pickton requesting an interview, and the letter was his reply.

Pickton, who is believed to have killed dozens of sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, never actually outlines just what he's prepared to say, and he may have little opportunity to ever say it.

While inmates in the federal prison system are permitted to arrange interviews with journalists, Correctional Service of Canada guidelines allow prison staff to restrict that access in certain cases.

Pickton appears to be one of those cases.

"At this point, what I can tell you is that the case-management team has made the decision that it's not in his correctional plan to give interviews," said Jean-Paul Lorieau of the Correctional Service of Canada.

"So far, everyone who's asked has been given the same answer."

Lorieau said several journalists have made similar requests since Pickton arrived at Kent, and all have been rejected.

Another corrections spokesman, David Harty, later clarified that there is no blanket ban on Pickton speaking with journalists and that each request is considered in light of his correctional plan. However, Harty couldn't expand on exactly what Pickton's plan says about interviews with the media.

Harty said Correctional Service policies state that mail is typically not read by prison staff except in rare circumstances. He couldn't say whether mail to or from Pickton is ever vetted.

A written response from the prison's warden, Mark Kemball, doesn't outline why Pickton is being kept away from reporters, but Kemball notes an inmate's correctional plan "establishes goals for the individual inmate, addresses the dynamic factors that contributed to his criminal behaviour and employs the most effective intervention techniques for that inmate."

Pickton was arrested in 2002, when RCMP officers executing a search warrant for illegal firearms on his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., stumbled upon the remains and belongings of missing sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

He has been in custody ever since, sitting through a trial that convicted him of six counts of second-degree murder in 2007 and several appeals that ended in 2010. He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for at least 25 years.

Pickton was able to give one media interview before was transferred to Kent.

In August 2010, days after the Supreme Court of Canada denied his appeal and before he was transferred into the federal system, Pickton spoke to a CTV reporter from a provincial jail.

In that interview, Pickton claimed he was a scapegoat and that others were responsible for the murders, though he didn't know who. He cryptically suggested there was more to the story, but then, as now, he didn't fill in the blanks.

The only time since the CTV interview that the public has heard anything from Pickton was during the ongoing public inquiry examining why police failed to catch him.

A senior officer from Ontario's Peel Regional Police visited Pickton at Kent as she prepared a report for the inquiry. Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans testified that Pickton maintained his innocence, but she didn't reveal anything else about their conversation.

Pickton isn't the first serial killer to be kept from the media.

Clifford Olson, who murdered 11 children and young adults in B.C. in the early 1980s, was infamous for contacting journalists and taunting his victims' families.

Corrections officials responded by cutting off Olson's access to journalists.

Harold Schechter, an expert on serial killers who teaches at the City University of New York, said he hasn't heard of many cases in which serial killers have been prevented from speaking to reporters.

"It's very unusual here in the United States; I'm not aware of any analogous situations," said Schechter, author of several books about multiple murderers, including "The Serial Killer Files."

"Very notorious serial killers -- John Wayne Gacy and (Ted) Bundy and the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, and all those people -- they seemed to communicate from behind bars all the time with journalists."

Schechter said restrictions on Pickton may be an attempt to avoid fuelling his notoriety.

"I'm going under the assumption that it has something to do with not allowing someone like Pickton to gratify his narcissism, and partly as a way of protecting the families," said Schechter.

"I don't know if this is part of it, but there's so much focus now on serial killer collectors and serial killer groupies, there might be some of that element of it."

Schechter said reporters should have access to serial killers, which he said can help the public and experts such as himself understand their heinous crimes.

Lori-Ann Ellis, whose sister-in-law Cara Ellis's remains were found on Pickton's farm, said she wants to hear what Pickton has to say.

Pickton was charged but never put on trial for the murder of Cara Ellis. That means her family has never heard a detailed account of what happened to her.

The only person who knows, said Lori-Ann Ellis, is Pickton. Even if he isn't prepared to come clean now, Ellis hopes that will change one day -- and if it does, she wants journalists to be able to tell that story.

"We don't want to hear a bunch of babble, but if he eventually gets so bored that he's just screaming to tell his story, who is the prison system to stop us from hearing that?" said Ellis.

"When people are on death row, they have those death row confessions. We don't have the death sentence, but I think he's going to get so bored for some kind of attention, eventually he may give up some information."

Pickton was convicted of killing six women, but the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm.

He once bragged to an undercover police officer that he killed a total of 49.

View the original article here

Lawyer Tells Of Meeting With Afghan Killings Suspect

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

A Seattle lawyer who is defending an Army staff sergeant suspected of killing 16 Afghans, including nine children, met Monday with the soldier for the first time at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a discussion the attorney described as emotional.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said he met for more than three hours with Robert Bales, a 10-year Army veteran who is being held in an isolated cell at the military prison.

"What's going on on the ground in Afghanistan, you read about it, I read about it, but it's totally different when you hear about it from somebody who's been there," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone during a lunch break. "It's just really emotional."

Bales, 38, and Browne are expected to meet again Monday afternoon.

Bales has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, which have endangered relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war. Formal charges are expected to be filed within a week.

Post spokeswoman Rebecca Steed said earlier that Bales would be able to meet Browne in what is described as a privileged visit. Along with medical visits, such meetings are generally more private than others conducted in the prison.

Bales is "already being integrated into the normal pre-trial confinement routine," Steed said.

That includes recreation, meals and cleaning the area where he is being housed. Steed said once his meetings with his attorney are complete later in the week, Bales will resume the normal integration process.

His day begins at 5 a.m., with a meal at 5:15. Then it's back to his cell and then to any scheduled meetings with medical, dental or mental health professionals. This is the time he also would be meeting with Browne.

People in pre-trial confinement eat separate from the general population for all meals in the same dining hall. Bales is being held in an area with about a dozen other service members who are awaiting the legal process, Steed said.

Among those being held at Fort Leavenworth are Pfc. Bradley Manning, charged in the WikiLeaks case, and Sgt. John Russell, who faces charges in the shooting deaths of five service members at a combat stress clinic in Baghdad.

If the case goes to court, the trial will be held in the United States, said a legal expert with the U.S. military familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

That expert said charges were still being decided and that the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the United States to participate, he said.

Military lawyers say once attorneys involved in the initial investigation of an alleged crime involving a service member have what they believe to be a solid understanding of what happened and are satisfied with the evidence collected, they draft charges and present them to a commander. That person then makes a judgment on whether there is probable cause to believe that an offense was committed and that the accused committed it.

That commander then "prefers" the charges to a convening authority, who typically is the commander of the brigade to which the accused is assigned but could be of higher rank.

Bales' defense team said in a statement late Saturday that "it is too early to determine what factors may have played into this incident and the defense team looks forward to reviewing the evidence, examining all of Sergeant Bales' medical and personnel records, and interviewing witnesses."

The lawyers' statement also said Bales' family was "stunned in the face of this tragedy, but they stand behind the man they know as a devoted husband, father and dedicated member of the armed services."

Military officials have said that Bales, after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, crept away March 11 to two villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the 16 killed were children and 11 belonged to one family.

Court records and interviews in recent days have revealed that Bales had a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also faced a number of troubles in recent years: a Florida investment job went sour, his Seattle-area home was condemned as he struggled to make payments on another, and he failed to get a recent promotion.

At their meeting Monday, Browne said, Bales clarified one story: It was two days before the Afghan shootings when one of Bales' friends, another soldier, had his leg blown off by a roadside bomb. Browne said Bales didn't witness the explosion but saw the aftermath.

Legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show.

Browne, 65, has represented clients ranging from serial killer Ted Bundy to Colton Harris-Moore, known as the "Barefoot Bandit." He has said he has handled only three or four military cases. Bales will also have at least one military lawyer.

Tall and stylish, Browne has been a prominent figure in Washington state legal circles since the 1970s, known equally for his zeal in representing his clients and his flair before television cameras.

View the original article here