Mass Tort Defense : Mass Tort Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Sean P. Wajert : Dechert Law Firm : Products Liability, Class Actions, Pharmaceutical Litigation

The Natural Resources Defense Council brought suit last week against the FDA for allegedly failing to take timely action in response to its petition asking the agency to ban the chemical bisphenol A. NRDC v. Sebelius, D.C. Cir., No. 10-1142 (filed 6/29/2010).

NRDC is one of a number of advocacy groups who allege that this important chemical, used to make polycarbonate plastics in water bottles and epoxy resins used to line cans containing food, causes harmful health effects, particularly to infants and children, including early puberty, reproductive abnormalities.

However, both the scientific process and the public interest are better served by allowing the FDA to complete its ongoing review of the science surrounding the safety profile of BPA -- at its own pace.  Just this January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA made it clear that BPA has not been proven to harm children or adults.  EPA released its bisphenol A Action Plan in March 2010. Importantly, the agency clearly indicated that it does not intend to initiate regulatory action under TSCA at this time on the basis of human health concerns.

This observation is consistent with a draft assessment issued by FDA in 2008, and the scientific conclusions of many other government regulatory agencies around the world. In January 2010, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR, Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung) wrote, “Following careful examination of all studies, in particular the studies in the low dose range of bisphenol A, BfR comes to the conclusion in its scientific assessment that the normal use of polycarbonate bottles does not lead to a health risk from bisphenol A for infants and small children. BfR is not alone in this assessment. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) share this opinion. Japan, which has conducted its own studies on bisphenol A, does not see any need for a ban either.”
 

In January 2010, FDA Deputy Josh Sharfstein was quoted as noting the FDA does support the use of baby bottles with BPA because the benefits of sound infant nutrition currently outweigh the known risks from BPA. Nevertheless, and perhaps not surprisingly, the California Assembly passed legislation last week to ban the use of bisphenol A in children's food and drink containers beginning in 2012.  The bill passed by a vote of 43-31 vote. The Toxics-Free Babies and Toddlers Act (S.B. 797) moves to the state Senate for approval, since the Senate initially passed a different version early last month.

The bill provides that if the state Department of Toxic Substances Control begins to regulate the chemical through its “green chemistry’’ initiative, S.B. 797 would be repealed.  In the meantime, the law would would limit the level of BPA in baby bottles, toddlers' cups, and food and drinking containers.  Infant formula manufacturers would have until July, 2012, to stop using BPA in the coatings used to line their metal containers.

 

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More than 100 federal and state court actions have been filed against BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., and other companies in connection with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico.  (The API has a Q&A on the accident, and the Unified Command on the incident offers updates.)  Like many mass accident scenarios, the spill has generated a variety of kinds of actions. The claims so far fall into several main categories, including personal injury/wrongful death, maritime torts, property damage/lost profits, shareholder claims, and environmental law actions.

The wrongful death actions arise from the 11 workers missing and presumed dead in the accident.  These cases were filed in federal and state courts in Louisiana and Texas.  Gulf-front property owners, fishermen, shrimpers, harvesters, seafood processors, and restaurants in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are among the entities suing over alleged harm to their businesses and their economic livelihoods. Many of these suits are class actions with overlapping class definitions.  The plaintiffs typically allege that defendants knew of the dangers associated with deepwater drilling and failed to take appropriate safety measures to prevent damage to marine or coastal environments, where they work and earn their income.

These claims potentially implicate caps on damages under the Limitation of Liability Act, and the Oil Pollution Act, which currently caps certain oil spill liability at approximately $75 million.  Plaintiffs have asserted that there are various exemptions from this reach of the Oil Pollution Act, for gross negligence and certain cleanup costs.  Also, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have advocated raising the caps retroactively. Bills S. 3305  (the so-called Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010) and H.R. 5214 would raise the liability for economic damages to $10 billion per spill from the current $75 million. In a Senate hearing, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned that raising the trust fund's liability cap to $10 billion would prevent smaller and mid-sized energy companies from operating offshore. Perhaps most importantly, there is some case law suggesting that the Oil Pollution Act will not preempt state common law tort liability.

The administration is also proposing a tax increase, to support the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, of a further 1 cent per barrel on petroleum. It is interesting that the administration has been criticized for the slowness of some of its responses to the spill, but is very quick to propose tax hikes, without an opportunity for all stakeholders to be heard and without careful consideration of the availability of the fund for future incidents. A White House summary of its proposals for legislation on oil spill response is available.

Some plaintiffs have proposed that the federal cases be coordinated in an MDL proceeding in the Eastern District of Louisiana.  In Re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL No. 2179 (filed 4/30/10). Certain defendants have suggested instead that the Southern District of Texas host the MDL. A large group of plaintiffs' attorneys had met in New Orleans early in the month to plot out litigation strategy.  Interestingly, the Mississippi Bar issued a statement advising potentially affected parties of the risk of improper solicitation by plaintiff attorneys.It will be fascinating to see if the defendants can remain similarly coordinated and avoid unnecessary finger-pointing.  The testimony of various executives for BP Plc, Transocean Ltd., and Halliburton in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that pointed out the responsibilities of the other companies, raises this issue. 

Another type of pending action is by various shareholders alleging securities fraud in a class action that asserts that defendants made false and misleading statements about their safety procedures. Allegedly as a result of the statements and the company's supposed failure to disclose prior safety issues, the stock prices had been inflated, tumbling after the accident.  Several shareholder derivative lawsuits were also filed against certain officers and directors of the defendants, claiming that they breached their fiduciary duties by supposedly ignoring critical safety issues. The suits also allege that defendants lobbied governmental authorities to reduce the extent of safety  regulation of the companies' gulf operations. (one would think that was protected speech)

Some litigation has named Interior Secretary Salazar and the U.S. Department of the Interior for their oversight of off-shore drilling operations. These case point to the rules regulating the oil companies' blowout and worst-case oil spill preparations.  Some have gone so far as to seek a halt to BP's operations at other oil drilling platforms.  Still others have focused on the oil companies' environmental impact statement posture as in violation of  the National Environmental Policy Act, and their seismic surveys and drilling operations as in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Democratic Senators are pressuring the Justice Department to to open a criminal probe into the accident, and BP's statements to the federal government regarding its ability to respond to oil spills. Earlier this month, Florida Gov. Crist appointed two former Florida state attorneys general to head a newly formed legal team that will represent the state on issues related to the spill.

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Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics
and Environmental Health, introduced this week the "Safe Chemicals Act of 2010," which would
amend the the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

Over the last several months, Congress has held a series of hearings focusing on chemical safety and possible ways to modernize TSCA. Chemical business leaders, public officials, scientists, doctors, academics, and liberal environmental organizations have expressed support for varied methods of reforms to the principal toxic substance law. The “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010” comports with the reform principles laid out by the Obama Administration and groups such as the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition, and purports to address issues with TSCA identified by the GAO.

The bill (summarized here) is supposed to:

• provide EPA with sufficient information to judge a chemical’s safety, by requiring manufacturers to develop and submit a minimum data set for each chemical they produce, while also preventing duplicative or unnecessary testing. EPA will have full authority to request additional information needed to determine the safety of a chemical.
• Prioritize chemicals by having EPA categorize chemicals based on risk, and focus resources on evaluating those most likely to cause harm.
• Place a new burden of proof on chemical manufacturers to prove the safety of their chemicals, including all foreseeable uses, before the chemical may enter the market or continue to be used.
• Create more access to chemical information, by establishing a public database to catalog the information submitted by chemical manufacturers and the EPA’s safety determinations. The EPA will impose requirements to ensure the information collected is "reliable."
• Promote innovation and development of green chemistry, through grant programs and research centers to foster the development of safe chemical alternatives, and bring some new chemicals onto the market using an expedited review process.
  
  
   

It is clear that safety must be the primary goal of chemical regulatory reform, and the scientific and technological advances made since the passage of TSCA should allow industry and the regulatory agency to achieve a high degree of safety.  Certainly,  the need to prioritize chemicals for evaluation, a proper risk-based approach to EPA safety reviews, and a reduction in animal testing, are all aspects that should generate bi-partisan support. However, the bill’s proposed decision-making standard may be both legally and technically impossible to meet. Readers know how the articulation and application of the burden of proof can be outcome determinative. It is impossible to prove that something is "safe,” if one means risk-free. Every substance, even water, is hazardous to health at some levels in some exposure contexts. It would be devastating for our economy if this bill was merely a back-door attempt to make the so-called precautionary principle the law in this country, as it is in Europe. It is simply scientifically false that every chemical that is dangerous at high doses is also hazardous at low doses;  it is patently false that every chemical that causes effects in lab animals will also cause those effects in human beings.

And the proposed changes to the new chemicals program could very well hamper innovation in new products, processes, and technologies. In addition, the bill undermines business certainty by appearing to allow states to adopt their own regulations and create a lack of regulatory uniformity for chemicals and the products that use them.

Congressmen Henry Waxman and Robert Rush have proposed a "discussion draft" on the House side, and that may afford an opportunity for a transparent and meaningful discussion by all key stakeholder groups to ensure that TSCA reforms are based on sound science and protect the safety of all consumers, while promoting jobs and innovation.  In these uncertain economic times, the last thing needed is another expensive government program that risks doing more harm than good.

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Previously we alerted readers to the introduction of The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2009 (S. 1606),  introduced in the Senate in August 2009 by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). The bill followed up on hearings last Spring during which witnesses testified about the perceived delays and difficulties with serving foreign manufacturers with process and establishing jurisdiction.

Last week, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) and several co-sponsors introduced in the House their own version of the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010 (H.R. 4678). The operative provisions of the House bill overlap those in the Senate bill, although the Senate bill also includes a section which discusses the alleged need for the legislation.

The proposed legislation would impact five categories of products: drugs, devices and cosmetics; biological products; chemical substances; pesticides; and consumer products. The bills only apply to manufactured products “in excess of a minimum value or quantity established by the head of the applicable agency" in regulations applying the legislation.

Both bills make consent to jurisdiction and service of process a condition of importing products into the United States. That is, the bills instruct several relevant product-regulating agencies to issue regulations requiring foreign manufacturers and producers to designate a registered agent. A person would not be able to import into the United States a covered product (or component part that will be used in the United States to manufacture a covered product) if such product or any part of such product (or component part) was manufactured or produced outside the United States by a manufacturer or producer who does not have a registered agent. 

Such a system which requiring an agent for service of process for every foreign manufacturer or producer who imports products into the U.S. would render the Hague Convention's  methods for service abroad unnecessary for such companies, and raises the risk that other countries may choose to create similar rules, subjecting U.S. companies to litigation in those other countries where their products may be sold.

Under the bills, a foreign manufacturer or producer of covered products that registers an agent as above thereby consents to the personal jurisdiction of the State or Federal courts of the State in which the registered agent is located for the purpose of any civil or regulatory proceeding.  Presumably, the expanded jurisdiction would also make it easier for U.S. companies to pursue indemnification claims against foreign manufacturers who were upstream suppliers.

Currently, foreseeing that one's product may enter a state is not, on its own, a sufficient basis for that state to assert jurisdiction. Asahi Metal Industry Co., Ltd. v. Superior Court, 480 U.S. 102, 112(1987); but cf. Nicastro v. McIntyre Machinery America Ltd., No. A-29-08 (N.J. 2/2/10).  It has been argued that Congress cannot create jurisdiction where the Constitution would forbid it. And it may be that a constitutional challenge would lie to some applications of the proposed bills. E.g., Texas Trading & Milling Corp. v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, 647 F.2d 300 (2d Cir. 1981). Presumably, the sponsors are looking to bypass the due process concerns by providing for consent to jurisdiction.

It is unclear what the effect of the bills might be on countries around the world regarding their willingness to enforce judgments entered in the United States, as the issue of the lack of foreign manufacturer assets in the U.S. is not addressed by the proposed legislation.

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The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works' Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health held a hearing earlier this month entitled, "Current Science on Public Exposures to Toxic Chemicals."   Readers from the chemical and energy industries in particular will want to take note of the discussion.

Chairman Lautenberg (D.N.J.) opined that  TSCA fails to give EPA the tools it needs to protect against unsafe chemicals.He claimed that in three decades EPA has tested only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals in the products people use every day. He mentioned unnamed "studies" that allegedly have found that as much as five percent of cancers, ten percent of neuro-behavioral disorders and 30 percent of asthma cases in children are associated with hazardous chemicals. That is why, he said, he will soon introduce a bill that will overhaul our nation’s chemical laws, with the "simple goal" to force chemical makers to prove that their products are safe before they end up in a store. 

This bill would fall into place with the ideas of other proponents of radical reform and supporters of the so-called precautionary principle.  Common sense would suggest that principles for any regulatory or statutory changes to TSCA should be based on the best available science, including risk assessment; must include cost-benefit considerations; must protect proprietary information; and must prioritize reviews for existing chemicals. Senator Lautenberg's notion would encourage litigation, allow for activist rather than government enforcement, and would compel unnecessary product substitution that will further damage our weak economy.  Indeed, it would harm small and medium-sized companies and could harm innovation.

Other witnesses at the hearing included Steve Owens, Assistant Administrator, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances Environmental Protection Agency;  Dr. Henry Falk  of the CDC; and Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Director  of the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences.

A number of witnesses also talked about bio-monitoring, the concept to potentially identify the concentration of chemicals actually taken up by the human body and the metabolic fate of those chemicals; to identify susceptible populations or particular at-risk groups (e.g. genetic polymorphisms) for chemical toxicity; and to inform discussions regarding levels of exposure consistent with no adverse effects (thresholds). However, bio-monitoring cannot eliminate potential confounders or alternative explanations for identified associations between chemical exposure and disease.  Any environmental chemical will be present to some extent in those who ingest, inhale or otherwise are exposed to it. Thus, the rabble-rousing about  “neurotoxins”, “endocrine disruptors”, or other “harmful chemicals” is essentially meaningless, without specific relationship to dose, exposure timing, and comparison to appropriate control populations. Our ability to measure substances at very low concentrations has outstripped our ability to determine causation.

Unfortunately, bio-monitoring has been abused as a tool. The practical problem with overstating exposure-disease associations is seen every day by medical professionals who evaluate people who are fearful of being “poisoned” by the latest chemical touted in a study as the cause of the same disease blamed on another compound just the month before, noted witness Dr. Charles McKay.

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Two Democratic legislators have introduced a bill that would create an FDA program to assess the potential health and safety effects of nano-technology ingredients in various consumer products.  Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) introduced the "Nanotechnology Safety Act of 2010," S. 2942, last week. Their introductory remarks here.

The FDA established a Nanotechnology Task Force, which issued a report in July 2007. In the task force report, recommendations were made regarding FDA’s future direction for regulating nanomaterial-containing products. Guidance development was included as one the recommendations. The FDA’s Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Science and Clinical Pharmacology met In 2008. Among the agenda topics was a discussion of issues pertaining to the use of nanotechnology in drug manufacturing, drug delivery, or drug products.  Later, FDA held a public meeting to gather information that will assist the agency in further implementing the recommendations of the Nanotechnology Task Force Report relating to the development of agency guidance documents concerning nanotechnology.

The bill would create a program for the scientific investigation of nanoscale materials included or intended for inclusion in FDA-regulated products, to address the potential toxicology of such materials, the effects of such materials on biological systems, and interaction of such materials with biological systems.  Specifically, FDA would be charged to assess scientific literature and data on general nanoscale material interactions with biological systems and on specific nanoscale materials of concern to Food and Drug Administration, and collect, synthesize, interpret, and disseminate scientific information and data related to the interactions of nanoscale materials with biological systems.

Nanotechnology applications in drug development are likely to have a significant impact on the products that FDA regulates. Products containing nanomaterials are being investigated for potential applications as therapeutics, and some products containing nanoscale materials are already on the market. While some of these nanomaterials are nanoscale versions of larger materials used in approved products, other nanomaterials are novel and have never been used in drug products. In 2009, the FDA introduced the "Nanotechnology Initiative", a collaborative effort between FDA and the Alliance for NanoHealth.

The proposed law would also require a report from FDA by 2012 that includes a review of the coordination of activities under the program with other departments and agencies participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The bill would send $25 million annual funding to the agency for the program. The bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,

Many readers of MassTortDefense know that nanotechnology refers to a new field of technology that seeks to manipulate and control products, really matter, on the atomic and molecular scale, typically 100 nanometers or smaller. To give some sense of scale, one nanometer is one billionth, or 10-9 of a meter. A nanometer compared to a meter is the roughly the same ratio as that of a baseball to the size of the Earth. Or another analogy, a nanometer is the length a man's whiskers grow in the time it takes him to lift his razor to his face to shave. We have posted on this topic here, here, and here.
 

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The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health held a joint hearing yesterday, entitled “Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.”

The Senators heard testimony from Lisa Jackson, head of EPA; John Stephenson, Director of Natural Resources and Environment for GAO; and Linda Birnbaum, head of NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program.

Administrator Jackson argued that the Toxic Substances Control Act is in urgent need of reform because of "troubling gaps" in knowledge about many chemicals that have come into wide use since. She asserted that manufacturers of various “grandfathered” chemicals weren’t required to develop and produce the data on toxicity and exposure that are needed to properly and fully assess potential risks. [In a bit of drama, EPA’s Jackson was asked about some of the troubling emails recently disclosed about the apparent concerted effort of some to quash any scientific dissent to an aggressive view of global warming.]

The American Chemistry Council has noted that updating the legislation in certain respects made good sense, favoring a comprehensive approach, rather than the current patchwork of state and federal laws governing chemicals.

GAO’s representative testified that TSCA generally places the burden of obtaining data about existing chemicals on EPA rather than on chemical companies. For example, the act requires EPA to demonstrate certain health or environmental risks before it can require companies to further test their chemicals. As a result, EPA does not routinely assess the risks of the over 83,000 chemicals already in use. Moreover, TSCA does not require chemical companies to test the approximately 700 new chemicals introduced into commerce each year for toxicity, and companies generally do not voluntarily perform such testing.

Dr. Birnbaum encouraged Congress to call for utilization of the new kind of toxicological testing that is less expensive and also gives an improved understanding of the actual effects of chemicals on humans. Toxicology is advancing from a mostly observational science using disease-specific models, she said, to a better, predictive science focused upon a broad inclusion of target-specific, mechanism-based, biological observations. This means using alternative assays targeting the key pathways, molecular events, or processes linked to disease or injury, and incorporating them into a research and testing framework.

Democratic legislators, including Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) have called for increased requirements for chemicals testing, and that “It's time to sound the alarm.” In an attempt to respond to industry concerns, Lautenberg argued that stronger regulations would somehow protect chemical companies from product liability suits—an ironic assertion at best as Democrats actively work to overturn express preemption for medical devices and extol the Wyeth v. Levine decision restricting implied preemption of drugs.

Of particular concern to readers of MassTortDefense would be efforts to eliminate the current risk-based review system under TSCA and force EPA to use the so-called precautionary principle.

It seems more supportable that any overhaul of TSCA should include the notion that scientific reviews must use data and methods based on the best available science and risk-based assessment; must include cost-benefit considerations for the private-sector and consumers; must protect proprietary business information, and should logically prioritize reviews for existing chemicals.

 

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