Digitek tablets recalled

Actavis Totowa LLC notified healthcare professionals of a Class I nationwide recall of all strengths of Digitek, a drug used to treat heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms.

The products are distributed by Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., under a “Bertek” label and by UDL Laboratories, Inc. under a “UDL” label.

The product is being recalled due to the possibility that tablets with double the appropriate thickness may contain twice the approved level of active ingredient.

The existence of double strength tablets poses a risk of digitalis toxicity in patents with renal failure. Digitalis toxicity can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, low blood pressure, cardiac instability and bradycardia. Several reports of illnesses and injuries have been reported.

Patients should contact their healthcare professional with questions.

Click here to read the FDA Press Release

[April 25, 2008 - Press Release - Actavis Totowa LLC]

http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/actavis04_08.html

Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges

This month’s issue of the ABA Journal includes an article that underlines the need to write in Plain English.

Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges
May 2008 Issue , ABA Journal

In his 21 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, no one has seriously accused Justice Antonin Scalia of being unable to express himself. Cass R. Sun­stein, the University of Chicago law professor, has likened his writings to those of Justices Robert H. Jackson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse says she “constantly dearly” wishes Scalia’s colleagues had his sense of wit and style.

From the bench he’s an acute—and sometimes withering—questioner. On the printed page, he’s a direct and engaging writer. And from the lectern he’s a smooth and self-assured orator—a self-professed fan of harsh truths skillfully articulated, even when they are not his own.

In his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuad­ing Judges, Scalia teamed with Bryan A. Garner, editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary. Ex­cerpted here, the book reveals ways in which clear writing, clear speaking and—above all—clear thinking can help you make your case.

Click here to continue this fascinating article.

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/making_your_case/print/

Prisoners as telemarketers? Inmates or Outsourcing?

Should prisoners have access to private information belonging to members of the public?
Do you want your teenager to answer the telephone and a convicted felon is on the other end of the line?

Oregon's Snake River Correctional Institution holds a telemarketing call center in the prison.

Here is an excerpt from a USA TODAY article:

About a dozen states — Oregon, Arizona, California and Iowa, among others — have call centers in state and federal prisons, underscoring a push to employ inmates in telemarketing jobs that might otherwise go to low-wage countries such as India and the Philippines. Arizona prisoners make business calls, as do inmates in Oklahoma. A call center for the DMV is run out of an all-female prison in Oregon. Other companies are keeping manufacturing jobs in the USA. More than 150 inmates in a Virginia federal prison build car parts for Delco Remy International. Previously, some of those jobs were overseas.
* * *
The center opened last year after a yearlong push by the Oregon Department of Corrections to recruit businesses that would otherwise move offshore. The program reduces by 24% recidivism, the frequency in which released prisoners violate the law and wind up back in jail, and teaches prisoners to work together.

Yikes ...
Click here to continue reading.