The Rambler

     As I began down that lonely road of blog creativity, I wasn't sure which road to take. The Robert Frost poem was ringing in my ear. I know that some of my blogs have not been up to the level of winning any 2008 Webbies. ( Does such an award really exist?).

     Recall and legal notices are filling my in box. For instance, Nestle recalls 900,000 lbs of Lean Cuisine. Like the little boy said to Shoeless Joe Jackson, "Say it ain't so". (Nestle story). I also saw that a Sheik spent 350k on a mind mapping and motivational guru to help Michael Jackson get his creative mind juices flowing again. (Jackson) That made me think, who is there for me to get this legal blog flowing today. Then I thought, would it be interesting to blog on how business lobbyists are adapting to the power shift in Washington and what that means to upcoming legislation? (AP article) To that question I could almost hear my mind shouting out loud.

     After this mental rambling, I decided to string together a couple of legal stories that you can click to, if one of them does interest you. First, The National Law Journal reports that legislators are working on bills that will overturn the recent Supreme Court decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, which gave immunity to a product manufacturer under an interpretation that Congress granted immunity when such products are approved by the FDA. Senators Kennedy and Waxman filed Amicus briefs that state that Congress did not intend to "pre-empt state tort actions". Second, Lawyers USA did a story that sets forth that FDA staffers objected to the Bush policies that were being pushed that put the FDA in the position of arguing Federal Preemption, for individuals injured by drugs sold by Big Pharma. This was an interesting read. Finally, to finish the blog out in continuing rambling fashion. In an unprecedented action, The Washington Post   reports that the FDA is opening up three offices in China to improve the safety of Chinese exports to the US. In a time that the FDA is admittedly understaffed, I hope that they can do some good in this area, despite those issues.