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On September 2, 2010, another offshore oil rig exploded and burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico just west of the infamous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a recent ABCnews.com report.

Initial reports said that the 13 workers on the rig were accounted for but were floating in the water near the rig. Twelve of the workers are reportedly wearing immersion suits, and one worker is reportedly injured.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the rig platform was fixed in 340 feet of water and the rig was in production at the time of the fire. Workers have told authorities that they had started emergency shutdown procedures before evacuating.

The platform does not have a standard blow-out preventer, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs addressed the rig explosion in his daily briefing saying, “We obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water.”

The U.S. Coast Guard has seven helicopters, two fixed-wing planes and a number of watercraft on the way to the scene. The vidtims are expected to be taken directly to area hospitals, according to ABC affiliate KATC.

The rig, positioned 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana, is owned by Mariner Energy. It was not immediately known what caused the explosion, but the rig reportedly remained on fire after the explosion.

Phone messages left for Mariner Energy were not immediately returned.

It is unclear whether oil is leaking into the water.

On September 1, 2010, a new study linked the popular weight loss drug Meridia to an increased risk of non-fatal heart attacks and stroke, although taking the drug did not seem to up the risk of death in patients with a history of heart problems, according to a recent HealthDay News report. The FDA, in January 2010 ordered a stronger warning to Meridia’s labeling, which already included warnings against using the drug in patients with numerous cardiovascular ailments

According to the authors of the trial, which was funded by Meridia’s maker, Abbott, the findings are generally in line with what has been known about the drug and shouldn’t change how it is used.

“The only time you’ve got an increase in heart attacks or strokes were in those patients who had had previous heart disease or strokes, in other words, the people who should never have received the drug in the first place,” said Dr. Philip T. James, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in England, and first author on the paper, which appears in the Sept. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Since January, Meridia (sibutramine) has carried a label warning that it should not be used by people with preexisting heart disease, so “the current prescription is entirely appropriate,” James said.

However, not everyone agrees. The FDA is slated to meet in September to decide if more regulatory action perhaps a tougher “black-box” warning or even removing Meridia from the market should be taken.

According to Dr. Greg Curfman, executive editor of the NEJM and co-author of an accompanying editorial, the FDA’s January warning was based on preliminary information only. The new study results represent the first hard data, “the first outcomes trial,” he said.

Based on the findings, he and others wonder if the drug is worth keeping around.

The drug did not seem to make people healthier, Curfman said. “Some people were actually made worse,” he said. “All this taken together results in an unfavorable risk-benefit profile and, based on that, we don’t see a rationale for keeping this on the market.”

Also, he said, “the efficacy of producing weight loss with the drug is very unimpressive. In this trial, patients lost on average less than 4 kilograms [about 9 pounds] and we know that that’s not going to translate into a real health benefit over time. It’s not enough weight loss. The FDA has a benchmark of about 5 percent loss of baseline body weight to consider a weight loss drug [effective].”

A University of Rochester expert concurs.

“I have never really found that people taking Meridia had obtained a real substantive weight loss,” said Dr. J. Chad Teeters, assistant professor of clinical medicine, cardiology division at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “It seems that a lot of these ‘quick fix’ weight loss drugs don’t really live up to the hype and they come with risks. I think there’s probably going to be a significant downturn in the use of the drug given the low efficacy and increased risk of side effects.”

This trial involved almost 11,000 older overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes or heart disease or both who were randomized either to take Meridia or a placebo and followed for about 3.4 years.

In the group taking Meridia, 11.4 percent had a heart attack, stroke or died as the result of a heart problem, versus 10 percent in the control group, a 16 percent increase.

People taking Meridia also had a 28 percent higher risk for nonfatal heart attack and a 36 percent raised risk for nonfatal stroke, compared to those taking placebo, the authors found.

All trial participants were also engaged in a diet-and-exercise program to lose weight, whether they were taking the drug or not, said study author James. “Meridia is not a wonder drug that guarantees people lose weight but it is a major additional help for people who change their diet and increase their physical activity,” he said.

But Teeters narrowed the prescription. “Good old-fashioned diet and exercise is the only substantive sustained therapy that’s shown to be helpful,” he said. “There’s no quick-fix pill.”

Officials have been trying to determine who is at fault and what prompted the largest food recall in U.S. history. Companies involved in this recent food scare have begun blaming one another and offering conflicting theories about the possible source of salmonella contamination that has sickened 1,470 people and led to the recall of 550 million eggs across the United States, according to a recent Wall Street Journal news report.

Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, whose chicken-feed samples tested positive for salmonella, has suggested the contamination might have come from a feed ingredient, bone meal, supplied by another company. That company, Central Bi-Products of Redwood Falls, Minn., strongly disagreed and said its heat-processed bone meal was untainted when it was shipped.

The FDA said it still didn’t know where the contamination found by its inspectors originated. It issued a report on August 30, 2010 citing many sanitation problems at Wright’s facilities, such as flies, frogs, pigeons, piles of chicken manure, and bird droppings.

The tainted eggs haven’t been tied to any deaths, according to the U.S. government. The strain of bacteria linked to the illnesses was found in feed made by Wright’s parent company, Quality Egg LLC, which also supplies the other major egg producer in the recall, Hillandale Farms of Iowa.

Wright raised the issue of its supplier last week when the FDA said the feed and bone meal showed traces of salmonella. Wright spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said the company kept bone meal in an overhead bin and the ingredient was tested separately by FDA officials.

“This finding obviously is of great concern to us,” Wright said in a statement, adding that the company provided the FDA with information about its supplier and immediately notified that company of the testing results.

Central Bi-Products’s president, Don Davis, said in an interview that he was “shocked and surprised” that anyone was suggesting his bone-meal ingredients were tainted, in light of recent FDA reports on Wright County Egg farms.

He said Central Bi-Products heats its meat and bone meal to temperatures of up to 260 degrees to kill any bacteria, including salmonella, and hires a company to test its products regularly. The ingredients are later added to the chicken feed as a protein supplement. It appears “obvious” that any contamination occurred after the meal left Central’s plant, Mr. Davis said.

If that is so, the question remains as to when the salmonella got into the feed, which the FDA has said is a likely source of infection in the chickens and their eggs.

The sanitary conditions in the Quality Egg feed mill, where feed and feed ingredients are stored, showed multiple points of possible contamination, according to the FDA.

Storage bins containing ingredients including the meat and bone meal were rusted, porous and exposed to live birds and avian feces, FDA investigators said. They also said rodents, a major source of salmonella, appeared to have access to many parts of the barn.

Quality Egg mixes the bone meal with corn and soy meal to make the feed that is given to chickens. An FDA official said individual ingredients were usually heat-treated but the final feed wasn’t processed again.

Central Bi-Products’s Mr. Davis said his company didn’t sell directly to Wright or Quality Egg but went through a middleman. He said Central Bi-Products, which is part of Farmers Union Industries LLC, supplies many farms and feed distributors. According to FDA officials, only two egg farms: Wright and Hillandale appear to be linked to the contamination.