RENTAL DEAL!
13oBuOATS
13oBuOATS
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
ISSUE 147 Friday 11th MARCH, 2016<br />
Page 23<br />
US FAMILY TO RECEIVE<br />
US$72 MILLION OVER<br />
BABY POWDER LAWSUIT!<br />
Johnson & Johnson<br />
(JNJ.N) was ordered<br />
by a Missouri State<br />
jury to pay $72 million indamages<br />
to the family of a<br />
woman whose death from<br />
ovarian cancer was linked<br />
to her use of the company’s<br />
talc-based Baby Powder<br />
and Shower to Shower<br />
for several decades.<br />
In a verdict announced<br />
two weeks ago, jurors in<br />
the circuit court of St.<br />
Louis awarded the family<br />
of Jacqueline Fox $10 million<br />
of actual damages and<br />
$62 million of punitive<br />
damages, according to the<br />
family’s lawyers and court<br />
records.<br />
The verdict is the first<br />
by a U.S. jury to award<br />
- Johnson and Johnson ordered to pay<br />
damages over the claims,<br />
the lawyers said.<br />
Johnson & Johnson<br />
faces claims that it, in an<br />
effort to boost sales, failed<br />
for decades to warn consumers<br />
that its talc-based<br />
products could cause cancer.<br />
About 1,000 cases<br />
have been filed in Missouri<br />
state court, and another<br />
200 in New Jersey.<br />
Fox, who lived in Birmingham,<br />
Alabama,<br />
claimed she used Baby<br />
Powder and Shower to<br />
Shower for feminine hygiene<br />
for more than 35<br />
years before being diagnosed<br />
three years ago with<br />
ovarian cancer. She died<br />
in October at age 62.<br />
Jurors found Johnson &<br />
Father of two girls…<br />
Johnson liable for fraud,<br />
negligence and conspiracy,<br />
the family’s lawyers<br />
said. Deliberations lasted<br />
four hours, following a<br />
three-week trial.<br />
Jere Beasley, a lawyer<br />
for Fox’s family, said<br />
Johnson & Johnson “knew<br />
as far back as the 1980s of<br />
the risk,” and yet resorted<br />
to “lying to the public,<br />
lying to the regulatory<br />
agencies.” He spoke on a<br />
conference call with journalists.<br />
Carol Goodrich, a Johnson<br />
& Johnson spokeswoman,<br />
said: “We have<br />
no higher responsibility<br />
than the health and safety<br />
of consumers, and we are<br />
disappointed with the outcome<br />
of the trial. We sympathize<br />
with the plaintiff’s<br />
family but firmly believe<br />
the safety of cosmetic talc<br />
is supported by decades of<br />
scientific evidence.”<br />
Trials in several other<br />
talc lawsuits have been<br />
set for later this year, according<br />
to Danielle Mason,<br />
who also represented<br />
Fox’s family at trial.<br />
In October 2013, a federal<br />
jury in Sioux Falls,<br />
South Dakota found that<br />
plaintiff Deane Berg’s use<br />
of Johnson & Johnson’s<br />
body powder products was<br />
a factor in her developing<br />
ovarian cancer. Nevertheless,<br />
it awarded no damages,<br />
court records show.<br />
Valeant Pharmaceuticals<br />
SEVERS HIS OWN PENIS AS PUNISHMENT<br />
FOR NOT PRODUCING A SON<br />
A<br />
man from southern<br />
China was so<br />
disappointed at<br />
not having produced a son<br />
that he cut off his own penis<br />
as a way of punishing<br />
himself.<br />
The 36-year-old, known<br />
under a pseudonym of<br />
A Yong, used a knife to<br />
sever around 1.2 inches of<br />
his penis on February 22,<br />
the People’s Daily Online<br />
reports.<br />
The man from a rural<br />
area near Quanzhou City<br />
was upset that he had two<br />
daughters and had reportedly<br />
been taunted by local<br />
villagers.<br />
According to Chinese<br />
media, the man has two<br />
daughters aged three and<br />
13.<br />
He was taken to the<br />
Emergency Room at the<br />
Fujian Armed Police<br />
Force Hospital in Quanzhou<br />
around 11pm on February<br />
15.<br />
His family members say<br />
that he had drunk around<br />
five shots of alcohol that<br />
night before coming to a<br />
drastic decision to cut off<br />
part of his penis.<br />
When A Yong’s family<br />
members realised what he<br />
had done, they rushed him<br />
to hospital immediately<br />
with the organ in a bag of<br />
ice.<br />
Huang Zhihong, a doctor<br />
on the night shift at the<br />
time, said: ‘The severed<br />
part is around 1.2 inches<br />
long.’<br />
The patient reportedly<br />
shouted at medical staff<br />
that he did not want it put<br />
back on.<br />
According to doctor<br />
Huang, A Yong had already<br />
been to a local clinic<br />
for first aid.<br />
Staff at the hospital immediately<br />
performed surgery<br />
on A yong. His manhood<br />
was allegedly sewed<br />
back on after a four-hourlong<br />
operation.<br />
Doctor Huang who undertook<br />
the surgery told<br />
reporters that the healing<br />
Bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby powder<br />
line a drugstore shelf in New York<br />
International Inc (VRX.<br />
TO) now owns the Shower<br />
to Shower brand but was<br />
not a defendant in the Fox<br />
case.<br />
process will take around<br />
six to 12 months.<br />
In rural areas of China,<br />
having a son is valued<br />
higher than a daughter<br />
because boys carry on<br />
The case is Hogans et<br />
al v. Johnson & Johnson<br />
et al, Circuit Court of the<br />
City of St. Louis, Missouri,<br />
No. 1422-CC09012.<br />
In rural China, a son is valued more than a daughter<br />
as boys can carry on the family name<br />
the family bloodline and<br />
stay to look after their<br />
parents while girls marry<br />
into other families and<br />
look after her husband’s<br />
parents.<br />
MINNESOTA COPS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DWI MISCONDUCT<br />
In late 2015, two officers<br />
of the Blaine,<br />
Minnesota, police department<br />
responded to an<br />
alarm call from the local<br />
Fleet Farm. When they<br />
arrived, the officers discovered<br />
a running car in<br />
the parking lot with an<br />
apparently unconscious<br />
man behind the wheel.<br />
The responding officers<br />
discovered the interior of<br />
the car was littered with<br />
Coors Light cans.<br />
The occupant was completely<br />
unresponsive with<br />
his penis out of his pants.<br />
What should have been a<br />
textbook DWI arrest, however,<br />
sparked an investigation<br />
exposing officer<br />
malfeasance and an unwillingness<br />
to hold fellow officers<br />
responsible for their<br />
criminal actions.<br />
Dashcam footage from<br />
the responding officer’s<br />
patrol car was obtained<br />
by KARE News 11 after a<br />
public records request. The<br />
footage shows the Blaine<br />
PD officers taking all the<br />
proper steps in dealing<br />
with a potential DWI. The<br />
driver, William Monberg,<br />
was so inebriated that it<br />
took one officer several<br />
attempts to wake him up<br />
enough to get out of the car.<br />
After banging on the roof<br />
and windows for several<br />
minutes, Monberg came to.<br />
During the field sobriety<br />
tests he was so inebriated<br />
he couldn’t understand a<br />
simple command, such as<br />
when an officer asked him<br />
to remove his hat. Monberg<br />
then blew a .202 on the officers’<br />
breathalyzer. He was<br />
arrested, cuffed, and placed<br />
in the back of the squad car.<br />
Once Monberg was in<br />
the squad car, however, the<br />
responding officers went<br />
through Monberg’s wallet<br />
and discovered that he was<br />
a Columbia Heights police<br />
officer. The video then<br />
shows the officers turning<br />
off their body microphones<br />
and stepping out of view of<br />
the cruiser’s forward-facing<br />
camera. Unfortunately for<br />
them, the cruiser’s interior<br />
camera, which monitors the<br />
back seat, captured them returning<br />
to the car, uncuffing<br />
Monberg, and arranging a<br />
ride home for him instead<br />
of a ride to jail.<br />
The responding officers<br />
covered up the entire affair.<br />
They filed no official<br />
reports and entered nothing<br />
into the department’s Computer<br />
Aided Dispatch system.<br />
They almost got away<br />
with it too, until Blaine PD<br />
chief Chris Olson opened<br />
an investigation into the incident<br />
nearly a month later.<br />
Thanks to the investigation,<br />
Officer Monberg was finally<br />
officially charged with<br />
DWI. Chief Olson would<br />
not provide a statement to<br />
KARE, citing the impending<br />
DWI case. He did, however,<br />
tell reporters that the<br />
young officers would be<br />
held accountable.<br />
“In this case inexperienced<br />
officers made a mistake.<br />
It is not acceptable.<br />
My expectation is fair and<br />
impartial policing and that<br />
didn’t happen. We need to<br />
treat people fairly, and it<br />
doesn’t matter what they do<br />
for a living.”