Daubert\u27s Significance

The authors review and note the limited reach of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. They also address its implications for concerned non-lawyers

Quieting the Sharholders\u27 Voice: Empirical Evidence of Pervasive Bundling in Proxy Solicitations

The integrity of shareholder voting is critical to the legitimacy of corporate law. One threat to this process is proxy “bundling,” or the joinder of more than one separate item into a single proxy proposal. Bundling deprives shareholders of the right to convey their views on each separate matter being put to a vote and forces them to either reject the entire proposal or approve items they might not otherwise want implemented. In this Paper, we provide the first comprehensive evaluation of the anti-bundling rules adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in 1992. While we find that the courts have carefully developed a framework for the proper scope and application of the rules, the SEC and proxy advisory firms have been less vigilant in defending this instrumental shareholder right. In particular, we note that the most recent SEC interpretive guidance has undercut the effectiveness of the existing rules, and that, surprisingly, proxy advisory firms do not have well-defined heuristics to discourage bundling. Building on the theoretical framework, this Article provides the first large-scale empirical study of bundling of management proposals. We develop four possible definitions of impermissible bundling and, utilizing a data set of over 1,300 management proposals, show that the frequency of bundling in our sample ranges from 6.2 percent to 28.8 percent (depending on which of the four bundling definitions is used). It is apparent that bundling occurs far more frequently than indicated by prior studies. We further examine our data to report the items that are most frequently bundled and to analyze the proxy advisors’ recommendations and the voting patterns associated with bundled proposals. This Article concludes with important implications for the SEC, proxy advisors, and institutional investors as to how each party can more effectively deter impermissible bundling and thus better protect the shareholder franchise

Field Evaluation of Herbicides on Vegetables and Small Fruits 2004

Herbicide evaluation studies on vegetables and small fruits were conducted in 2004 at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station at Fayetteville, AR, in an effort to evaluate new herbicides, herbicide mixtures, and their application timings for weed control efficacy and crop tolerance. Results of these studies, in part, provide useful information to producers, fellow researchers, the Crop Protection Industry, and the IR-4 Minor Crop Pest Management Program in the development of potential new herbicide uses in vegetable, and fruit

Effect of Concomitant 3-Hydroxy-3-Methyl-Glutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitor Therapy on Creatine Phosphokinase Levels and Mortality Among Patients Receiving Daptomycin: Retrospective Cohort Study.

IntroductionThe prescribing information for daptomycin recommends discontinuing statin therapy during receipt of daptomycin. The literature supporting this recommendation is sparse. The objectives of this study were to examine the impact of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors (statins) on creatine phosphokinase (CPK) elevations and mortality among patients receiving daptomycin therapy.MethodsA retrospective cohort study was performed among daptomycin recipients in the Upstate New York Veterans' Healthcare Administration from September 15, 2003 to July 1, 2013. Inclusion criteria were: (1) daptomycin for ≥48 h, (2) availability of baseline CPK value and (3) >1 CPK level measurement taken while on therapy. The following were extracted from medical records: demographics, comorbidities, laboratory data, medication history (daptomycin, statins and concomitant drugs known to increase CPK), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE)-II score and vital status at 30 days. The exposure of interest was use of statins. The primary outcome was CPK elevation defined as a CPK value ≥3 times the upper limit of normal (ULN) if baseline CPK was normal, and ≥5 times ULN if baseline CPK was elevated. The secondary outcome was death within 30 days of commencing daptomycin.ResultsA total of 233 patients were included in this analysis. Among these patients, 53 received concomitant statin therapy. Most baseline clinical characteristics were similar between statin recipients and non-recipients. Five (2.1%) patients experienced a CPK elevation; 3/53 (5.7%) were statin recipients and 2/180 (1.1%) received daptomycin alone (p = 0.08). All patients with CPK elevations had normal baseline CPK values. No effect modification was observed by use of other concomitant medications known to increase CPK values. Death was observed more frequently among statin non-recipients (17.2%) than recipients (9.4%).ConclusionsAmong patients receiving daptomycin, no significant difference was observed in frequency of CPK elevation between statin recipients and non-recipients

Modernizing the Canada Health Act

The Canada Health Act (CHA) was adopted in 1984, to shore up a health-care system conceptualized in the 1960s. Under the CHA, universal coverage is limited to medicallynecessary hospital and physician services, to the exclusion of vital goods and services such as outpatient pharmaceuticals, dental care, long-term care, and many mental health services. Inequities resulting from these gaps in public coverage are partly to blame for pushing Canada\u27s health system to the bottom ofrecent international rankings. But there is more to modernizing Canada s health care system, we argue, than filling these gaps in universal coverage. Every major health system review undertaken in Canada over the past decade has ended with a call for greater accountability, and rightly so: accountability is arguably the sine qua non of high-performing health systems. Whereas many countries have established open and rigorous processes for evaluating health goods and services, targeting public spending on those that deliver the biggest bang for buck, Canada\u27s governance mechanism for defining the medicare basket is passive, opaque and only tenuously evidence-driven. A move to expand medicare\u27s scope of coverage must be accompanied by improvements in this type of accountabilit

The Development of an Integrated Model of EMR Adoption: Incorporating the Organization Artifact

The information systems (IS) field has studied information technology (IT) adoption for several decades to, among other things, make it easier for organizations to derive value from IT by helping them to more effectively and efficiently use it. Extant IT adoption work has traditionally focused on a single type of structural form: the form in which the purchasing decision maker does not represent the end user of the innovation. While this structure may have adequately represented the predominant corporations historically, a greater number of organizations now contain employees who represent both the purchasing decision maker and the end user. We begin to investigate alternative structural forms by focusing on organizations in which the IT purchasing decision maker also represents the end user. Thus, we investigate the factors what physicians in a hospital setting versus those in private practice find important in adopting EMR systems. Our results demonstrate that the context of adoption matters, and we discuss the additional opportunities that exist in this area for researchers to examine this new theoretical lens for adoption research

Canadian Medical Malpractice Law in 2011: Missing the Mark on Patient Safety

This paper surveys the current state of medical malpractice law in Canada, along with current evidence on adverse events in Canadian hospitals, medical clinics, and long-term care facilities. Though there is currently no burning platform to reform Canadian medical malpractice law, the authors raise concerns about the law\u27s failure to deter medical malpractice, as well as concerns about access to justice issues facing victims of medical malpractice. Federal and provincial governments have tried to promote patient safety through various prevention strategies—for example, through the creation of Health Quality Councils, the dissemination of information on best practices, and tighter regulation of private clinics. Although patient safety advocates often contend that the threat of medical malpractice claims may exacerbate problems in patient safety, there is no evidence to support this in the Canadian context. The authors contend that medical malpractice law could be made a more effective component in this drive to promote patient safety