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Medico-Legal
Lawsuits take on fish oil supplement over heart health claims
Lawsuits in the US are challenging claims by fish oil supplement companies that their products support heart health, suggesting that instead, the opposite might...
Australian IVF firm pays $56m for destroyed embryos
After a four-year legal tussle, Australian company Monash IVF has reached a $56m no admission of liability settlement with more than 700 former patients for destroying...
Court victory, payout, for vaginal mesh victims in England
More than 100 British women who suffered excruciating pain and complications from transvaginal mesh implants – some left unable to walk or work –...
Minister targets dodgy lawyers as SIU probes R30bn medico-legal claims
Unscrupulous lawyers, often in collusion with healthcare practitioners, who have lodged multi-billion rand fraudulent medico-legal claims against the Health Department, are now being offered...
Fines and suspensions handed down in HPCSA disciplinaries
Healthcare practitioners stealing from medical schemes by claiming for fictitious treatments is a regular complaint heard by the Health Professions Council of SA, as...
Eastern Cape slashes medico-legal claims but still in the red
The Eastern Cape Government’s integrated medico-legal strategy, introduced in 2023, has resulted in a 65% drop in new claims, saving millions of rands –...
Nurse reinstated, paid R1m after rape accusations
After being fired for allegedly raping a mental health patient twice, a male nurse will now be reinstated by the North West Department of...
US doctors lose licences over Covid misinformation
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has revoked the board certification of two physicians involved in the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance...
Routine hernia op leads to seven more surgeries for pastor
A Johannesburg pastor has launched an official complaint saying she endured an agonising series of complications after a routine hernia repair at a government...
UK medics at work despite sexual assault, rape allegations
Hundreds of British doctors and nurses are still practising despite being accused of serious sexual assault and rape in the past six years.
General Medical...
J&J claimants vote for $6.5bn settlement
Johnson & Johnson has apparently cleared a key threshold of support for its proposed $6.5bn settlement of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby...
SA woman drops case against US firm for cystic fibrosis drug
Johannesburg investment banker Cheri Nel has dropped a potentially landmark court case against Vertex Pharmaceutical in which she sought to secure access to lifesaving...
Addict mother fails in legal bid to control child’s treatment
The Gauteng High Court has ordered that a four-year-old boy, currently in foster care and who has various conditions resulting from in-utero drug exposure,...
Dickason plans to appeal child murder convictions
Lauren Dickason, the South African doctor who was sentenced to an effective 18 years in June for murdering her three children, intends appealing her...
GSK wins latest case over Zantac cancer claims
A US jury found this week that pharma giant GSK was not responsible for an Illinois woman’s illness – a triumph for the company...
New lawsuits over ‘HeLa’ cell misuse claims
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and US drugmaker Viatris were hit with a federal lawsuit in Maryland, USA, this week by the family of a...
Formal inquiry after children’s dental visit deaths
The HPCSA has subpoenaed a dental practitioner to attend a formal inquiry in September, where her “professional conduct” will be questioned relating to two...
Pretoria midwife faces multiple assault charges
A former Pretoria midwife appeared briefly in court last week facing a barrage of assault charges after years of malpractice allegations related to her...
Euthanasia activist Davidson arrested again
SA euthanasia activist Sean Davison has been arrested in London for assisting a terminally-ill patient to die.
According to Netwerk24, Davison had accompanied a 79-year-old English...
Puberty blockers ban lawful, rules UK High Court
A British judge has rejected challenges to emergency legislation introduced under the previous Health Secretary, ruling that the ban on prescribing puberty blockers to...
Australian judge dismisses Roundup class action cancer suit
A class action lawsuit claiming Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller can cause lymphoma has been dismissed by an Australian judge, a ruling the company said it...
Gauteng Health to fork out R1m for botched knee surgery
Gauteng’s Department of Health is mired in a sea of negligence claims, having paid out R623m for the first nine months of the 2023/24...
Gauteng Health accuses Cancer Alliance of interference as case postponed
The Gauteng Health Department has hit back, in court papers, against claims that it has failed to spend millions of rands of cancer funding,...
Wrong heart monitor data leads to unnecessary surgery for woman
A US woman is suing a medical device manufacturer, alleging her heart monitor provided her doctors with data from a different patient, leading to...
Netcare failed to protect employee against abusive surgeon, court finds
The former manager of an operating theatre at the Free State Universitas Hospital has successfully sued Netcare for failing to protect her and take...
Probe into child’s death after tooth extraction
The Free State Department of Health has launched an investigation into the death of a four-year-old girl, who died after having a tooth pulled...
Patient charges Netcare staffer with sexual harassment
A female patient has filed charges with local police alleging sexual harassment by a male nurse at a Pietermaritzburg hospital, and accusing Netcare St...
Sackler family faces rash of lawsuits for OxyContin crisis
Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of highly addictive opioid OxyContin, is being pursued by a mass of creditors as well as more than 40 states...
US cosmetic surgeon to fork out $5m after fake reviews
A Seattle cosmetic surgery provider has been ordered to pay $5m to the state Attorney-General’s office and thousands of Washingtonians after being accused of...
Leading drug scientist’s fraud charges shakes confidence in science
The fraud charges against City University of New York (CUNY) Professor Hoau-Yan Wang relating to Cassava Sciences’ proposed Alzheimer’s drug Simufilam, have rocked confidence...
Mzansi LifeCare boss nabbed for alleged R32m mobile clinic fraud
A third person has been arrested in connection with a R32m fraud case linked to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, with Nandi Nandi Msimang...
J&J price probe dropped after TB drug costs slashed
Health NGOs have hailed the agreement reached between the Competition Commission and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals over the termination...
Laser hair removal, plastic surgeons, top litigation list
In a cross-sectional study of malpractice and medical liability claims for cutaneous energy-based device procedures, researchers found that the most litigated health professionals were...
Fake therapist fooled hundreds online until she died
Hundreds of Americans may have unknowingly received therapy from an untrained impostor who masqueraded as an online therapist, possibly for as long as two...
Health bosses guilty of Life Esidimeni deaths
The blame for some of the deaths in the Life Esidimeni tragedy – one of the worst human rights infringements in democratic South Africa...
Suspended sentences for Cape doctor who sold R5m medicines
Cape Town doctor Bert Wolfgang Kirsten has been sentenced after entering into a plea agreement with the state for the selling and distribution of...
Life Esidimeni judgment next week
The long-awaited judgment in the Life Esidimeni inquest will be delivered on 10 July, when the Gauteng High Court will rule who should be...
Judge foils bid to block J&J bankruptcy plan
A US judge has rejected a bid by a group of cancer victims to block Johnson & Johnson from pursuing a proposed bankruptcy settlement of...
Alzheimer’s researcher in court for fraud
A scientist whose research has been at the centre of controversy over an Alzheimer’s drug candidate has been charged with fraud.
A grand jury has...
Woman wins damages after uterus removed in C-section
Gauteng’s Health MEC is being sued by a woman who emerged from a Caesarean birth at a state hospital minus her uterus, despite medical...