Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are doing just fine, thank you, despite the cloudy skies looming over the Pharmalot campus. After all, the birds are still chirping and a cool breeze is wafting by. Moreover, this marks the middle of the week, which means we have managed to survive this far. And this calls for celebration, yes? So please join us as we hoist another cup of delicious stimulation. Our choice today is maple bourbon. Yum. Meanwhile, here are a few items of interest. Have a grand day, and drop us a line if you hear something saucy. …
Internal documents cited during opening remarks of a landmark opioid trial in Cleveland suggest the nation’s biggest pharmacy chains were warned by employees about dispensing the addictive painkillers, NPR says. Mark Lanier, an attorney for two Ohio counties suing CVS Health (CVS), Giant Eagle, Walgreens (WBA), and Walmart (WMT), read the documents in his opening statement. “Walgreens is not verifying the legitimacy of suspicious orders, which could lead to the fulfilment of an illicit order,” said one Walgreens memo cited by Lanier. A separate communication from a CVS employee warned that company safeguards, designed to reduce prescription opioid abuse, might be inadequate.
The estate of Henrietta Lacks plans to file many more lawsuits against companies for allegedly profiting unfairly from her cells, The Boston Globe reports. Earlier this week, the estate sued Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO) for allegedly selling cells that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took from the Black woman in 1951 without her knowledge or consent as part of “a racially unjust medical system.’’ Her cells, obtained in 1951 during treatment of a cancerous tumor, were eventually used in medical research to create a cell line named after her, HeLa (pronounced hee-la). It is the most prolific and widely used human cell line in biology.
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