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Medico-Legal
Altria agrees to $235m settlement in vaping lawsuits
The Altria Group has agreed to pay $235m to settle at least 6 000 lawsuits accusing it of igniting a teen vaping epidemic through...
US court declines to hear Teva challenge over patented heart drug
The US Supreme Court has declined to hear Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals USA’s challenge to a $235m award to US-based GSK in a patent dispute...
HPCSA disciplinaries: sexual abuse, and failure to diagnose chronic disease
Incompetent hip surgery, an ambulance assistant who drove over a colleague, and two psychologists struck from the register. MedicalBrief’s roundup of recent findings by...
Doctors challenge law allowing pharmacists to give HIV meds without scripts
Two years after the South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) published legislation in the Government Gazette to enable pharmacists to prescribe and dispense antiretroviral medicines...
Former MEC claims she was unaware of risks of Life Esidimeni transfers
Former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu told the Life Esidimeni inquest that she was not told by department officials about the risks of transferring...
Gilead wins billion-dollar patent lawsuit against US Government
The US Government was slapped down by a federal jury on Tuesday which found that Gilead Sciences did not infringe US patents with its HIV-prevention...
US gynaecologist sued for photographing patients' genitalia
US lawyers representing 83 women have filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against an Indiana physician who is accused of photographing their genitalia without their...
Chief medic fired for whistle-blowing awarded £3.2m
The former chief medical officer of the Isle of Man has been awarded a £3.2m settlement over her unfair dismissal for whistle-blowing, a tribunal...
Prison for Nigerian couple in UK organ trafficking plot
A British jury has sentenced Ike Ekweremadu, a wealthy Nigerian senator, to almost 10 years behind bars for an organ-trafficking plot in which he...
Surgeon ordered to pay R2m damages for hernia surgery injuries
A judge has ordered a Nelson Mandela Bay surgeon to fork out more than R2m in damages after performing surgery on a woman who...
SCA ruling stymies Gauteng Health bid to cut negligence costs
A Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling ordering the Gauteng Health Department to pay R800 000 to a woman harmed during gallbladder surgery to...
Life Esidimeni inquest: MEC dodges blame for ending contracts
Former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu told the Life Esidimeni inquest she was not solely responsible for the decision to move mental health patients...
UK nurse accused of killing babies claims innocence
A British nurse accused of multiple murders and attempted murders of babies broke down in court this week when she told a jury she...
‘Malicious’ Gilead vs US in mega HIV drug patent trial
A courtroom clash is expected when the US Government takes on Gilead Sciences in Delaware this week, with the drug company fighting claims that...
Gynae's malpractice hearing stalls after plea change
Disgraced Cape Town gynaecologist Ganes Anil Ramdhin, who has been suspended from the Health Professions Council of SA three times and struck off the...
State still paying ex-MEC’s legal fees in Life Esidimeni case
Despite the 2017 resignation of former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu, the state is continuing to pay her legal fees in the Life Esidimeni...
Nurse wins R3m private hospital care for botched state operation
Almost 10 years after the fact, a nurse at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, who suffered serious injuries in a botched operation at a...
Abortion pill access upheld by US Supreme Court
The abortion pill, mifepristone, which was first approved in the US in 2000, will continue to be widely available in the country as the...
Celebrity doctor charges Magudumana and 'Facebook rapist' with fraud
Popular doctor Mmereka Ntshani, known as Dr Pashy on social media, has laid charges against convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester and Sandton doctor...
Bogus nursing college boss faces nearly 100 counts of fraud
A Limpopo woman who was in hiding for six years after apparently defrauding students out of more than R2m while running three unregistered nursing...
Homicide charges for medical team over Maradona’s death
A medical team of eight staff will go on trial charged with “homicide by negligence” over the death of footballing great Diego Maradona, who...
Theranos fraudster pleads for leniency as 11-year sentence looms
Elizabeth Holmes, former Theranos CEO and convicted fraudster, has made a final attempt to avoid incarceration in a US prison, filing an appeal last...
RAF heads to ConCourt in battle against medical aid payments
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is now turning to the Constitutional Court after its application to appeal a ruling in favour of Discovery Health...
'Landmark' ruling confirms free healthcare right for all pregnant women, children
The Gauteng High Court, in a hard-hitting judgment which civil society groups said was a victory against xenophobia, has ruled that all pregnant women...
Discovery Life to appeal R25m payment for ‘disability’
Discovery Life has filed a notice for leave to appeal a High Court judgment that ordered it to pay more than R25m to a...
Legal vacancies hobble Gauteng Health and negligence claims
Already crippled by hundreds of negligence claims, Gauteng Health’s Legal Services Department is further hampered by critical shortages of staff and unfilled posts, with...
Health Department yet to receive anti-vax group legal papers over Pfizer jab
An anti-vax group claims to have issued a High Court application to challenge the authorisation of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine by Health Minister Joe...
SIU probes health-related fraud worth billions
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has instituted more than R1.6bn in health-related civil action cases in the High Court and the SIU special tribunal,...
Juul’s profits up in smoke after $462m vapes settlement
New York, California and several other states were awarded a hefty $462m settlement with the embattled, former vaping giant Juul Labs last week, resolving...
US abortion pill duel intensifies
Less than a year after the US Supreme Court declared it was ceding the matter of abortion to elected officials, judges are about to...
US man sues over alleged racial bias in transplant algorithm
An African American man is seeking millions of dollars in damages and a better position on the kidney transplant waiting list in a lawsuit...
Urgent need for diverse strategy to address rising medico-legal claims
As the number of medico-legal claims rise, with both the size and value of claims also mushrooming, there is an urgent need to review...
Neurosurgeon defends stance on Agrizzi’s prognosis
Neurosurgeon Dr Herman Edeling yesterday defended not performing a physical examination on former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi, accused of tender fraud.
Edeling was being cross-examined...
Life Esidimeni inquest postponed as MEC’s lawyers unpaid
The inquest into the Life Esidimeni deaths has been postponed to May because the State Attorney has failed to pay the lawyers of former...
Cancer victims’ lawyers slam J&J's second bankruptcy bid
Johnson & Johnson’s second attempt to resolve talc lawsuits in bankruptcy should be dismissed as an unprecedented fraud designed to deny plaintiffs just compensation,...
Big Pharma slams US abortion pill ruling
In an open letter published in the US, pharmaceutical and biotech company executives have described as “judicial activism” last week’s ruling by a Texas...
Surgeon who called Covid a hoax fails to overturn suspension
The British High Court has upheld a decision to suspend a senior surgeon from the UK medical register for six months for airing conspiracy...
GEMS faces court action over alleged ‘dodgy’ tender claims – again
A black-owned pharmacy group has taken legal action against SA’s biggest medical scheme for public servants, claiming it broke its own tender rules with...
Department to pay after lawyers' blunder in cerebral palsy appeal case
The Eastern Cape Health Department will have to fork out millions of rands in damages to the mother of a child born with cerebral...
Public Protecter finds hospital staff failed to report teen’s rape
The Office of the Public Protector has found that staff failed to report the rape of a minor patient at Stellenbosch Hospital to police,...