The Supreme Court of the United States has placed a hold on a legal settlement approved by a federal appeals court that would have seen Purdue Pharma, the company most blamed for the US opioid epidemic, pay $7.2bn to states, cities, native tribes, and individuals harmed by its marketing practices, including $6bn from Purdue’s former owners, the Sackler family.
The settlement, announced in May after the Sacklers increased their offer from $4.3bn, was accepted by all the US plaintiffs, effectively overruling objections from a smaller number of Canadian plaintiffs.1 But it was another party to the case, the US Trustee, a Department of Justice official responsible for the integrity of the bankruptcy system, who has now persuaded the country’s top court to re-examine the constitutionality of the deal.
A novel feature of the settlement was that while only Purdue had …
The past week saw the world’s first heat related nationwide shutdown as Iran’s government declared two midweek days to be public holidays, urging elderly people and those with health conditions to stay indoors as temperatures in some southern towns hit 51°C.
In the United States, meanwhile, burn wards in Phoenix, Arizona, were full as the asphalt reached temperatures of 82°C. Asphalt and concrete burns accounted for half of the burn patients in the intensive care unit, said Kevin Foster, director of the Arizona Burn Center. He told the news channel CNN that people who fell and struggled to rise quickly had “really serious injuries” that were comparable to those seen in house fires. Paramedics have sustained burnt knees while attending to patients. Other patients had been scalded by water from garden hoses.
At the quadrennial World Scout Jamboree on South Korea’s southwest coast, where 43 000 scouts camped out in a blistering heatwave, 807 people sought medical treatment
Cremation figures released and then quickly withdrawn by authorities in China’s Zhejiang province appear to confirm widespread doubts about the government’s official pandemic death count, and lend support to international forecasts which predicted roughly 1.5 million deaths from covid in the weeks after China abandoned its zero covid policy last December.
In the relatively wealthy and developed eastern province, where more than 99% of all deaths end in cremation, the number of cremations in the first quarter of 2023 was just under 171 000, compared with 99 000 in the first quarter of 2022 and 90 000 in the first quarter of 2021.
Extrapolated across China, this 72% rise in mortality would translate to about 1.5 million excess deaths in the first quarter of 2023, closely matching predictions of several models developed by epidemiologists.12
In a normal year, first quarter cremation figures for all provinces would be released around September as part of each province’s heal
US gynaecologist who sexually abused hundreds of patients is sentenced to 20 years in jail bmj.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bmj.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The spring Little League season is stretching deep into the summer as All-Stars across the state attempt to be the last ones standing after a busy stretch of pool play