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Unsealed emails reveal the role baby powder-maker Johnson & Johnson played in a report that an industry group submitted to U.S. regulators deciding whether to keep warnings off talc-based products linked to cancer, Bloomberg News reported. The emails -- unsealed in the state of Mississippi’s lawsuit against J&J over its refusal to add a safety warning -- show that J&J and its talc supplier chose the scientists hired by their trade association, the Personal Care Products Council, to write the 2009 report assessing talc-based powders’ health risks. They also show that the researchers changed the final version of their report at the companies’ behest. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that it relied in part on the report in its decision to forgo a warning for the product. The emails among executives of J&J and Rio Tinto Minerals, its supplier at the time, provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of dealings between companies and their industry group that successfully fended off a cancer warning on talc-based powders for nearly 40 years. Now, almost 39,000 users and their families are suing J&J, most claiming their ovarian cancers and those of loved ones were linked to asbestos, the potent carcinogen in the products, which were pulled from U.S. and Canadian shelves in May 2020.

The senior-living provider poised to acquire Hillside Village, acash-strapped retirement community, plans to continue operations there without any major changes, a company spokesman said yesterday, according to the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. That sale is set to be approved Nov. 19 after the nonprofit Prospect-Woodward Home, which opened Hillside Village two years ago, received no other bids for the facility before a court-imposed deadline late last month, according to Covenant Living Communities & Services spokesman Randy Eilts. The sale hearing, part of Hillside Village's ongoing chapter 11 case, had initially been scheduled for yesterday but was recently postponed. Based in Skokie, Ill., Covenant Living will purchase the Keene facility in a $33 million deal initially announced in August. The company, which operates 18 senior-living facilities nationwide, will honor all existing contracts with Hillside Village residents and staff, Eilts said Monday.

Mallinckrodt Plc filed for bankruptcy last year to resolve thousands of lawsuits accusing it of fueling the opioid epidemic, but as it aims to bring the process to a close, it must first address a completely different kind of claim, Reuters reported. The pharmaceutical company recently kicked off a multi-day hearing seeking approval of its proposed reorganization plan and underlying opioid litigation settlement, which creditors and government entities have largely signed off on. But now, in what one Mallinckrodt attorney called an “unconventional” approach to a chapter 11 plan confirmation process, the company will begin another hearing on Monday over two insurers’ claims that they have had to reimburse their customers at highly inflated prices for Mallinckrodt’s Acthar gel. The product, one of the company's main moneymakers, is used for treatment of infantile spasms and multiple sclerosis. The insurers, Humana Inc. and Attestor, allege that not only did Mallinckrodt engage in anti-competitive practices by inflating Acthar's prices before the bankruptcy in violation of antitrust laws, but that it has continued charging those high rates during the case. The insurers argue that since they have had to continue paying amounts they believe are illegal, they should be entitled to senior priority status in Mallinckrodt’s creditor payment structure.

Johnson & Johnson is seeking to revive its strategy for resolving tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder caused ovarian cancer and other health problems in women, Bloomberg News reported. A federal judge opened a two-day trial in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday to decide whether to temporarily halt 38,000 lawsuits aimed at J&J and about 250 retailers and insurance companies. Stopping the suits is a key part of J&J’s strategy to pay at least $2 billion to end all current and future claims related to baby powder and other talc-based products. To do so, J&J executed a legal strategy known as the Texas Two Step, creating a unit in Texas to hold all of the lawsuits, then transferring that unit to North Carolina and placing it in bankruptcy. The move angered lawyers for alleged baby powder victims, who say J&J is trying to block cancer victims from having their day in court. The lawsuits against J&J’s bankrupt unit, LTL Management, have already been halted as part of standard chapter 11 bankruptcy rules. It also caught the attention of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to advance a bill banning the strategy.

Business groups, state attorneys general and religious organizations have promised swift court challenges to try to block the vaccine-and-testing mandate unveiled yesterday by the Biden administration, according to a Reuters analysis. President Joe Biden has said the country’s patience is growing thin with the 30% of Americans who are not fully vaccinated, and the rule is aimed at ensuring safe workplaces. The vaccine requirement is being imposed through a rarely used process that has a history of being blocked by judges. Imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the rule requires all businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure they are vaccinated or submit to weekly testing and wearing a face covering. OSHA rules typically take seven years to develop. This rule is being issued through an emergency temporary standard (ETS), a process that allows OSHA to address a “grave danger” and is aimed at protecting against that hazard. Prior to an ETS issued in June that applied to health care settings, OSHA had issued nine emergency temporary standards since it was set up in 1971. Of those, six were challenged in court and only one survived unscathed: a standard issued in 1978 aimed at exposure to acrylonitrile, a chemical used in rubber manufacturing. A group of 24 Republican attorneys general warned in September that they would go to court to fight what they said was an illegal mandate. They argued OSHA’s power to issue an emergency rule was limited to workplace hazards such as industrial chemicals, not a widely circulating virus. They also accused the Biden administration of usurping the power to regulate health care, which has traditionally been left to states. Industry, religious and civil liberty groups have also said they plan to sue because they expect the rule to be a burden on businesses or amount to an unconstitutional power grab.

Mallinckrodt PLC has begun defending its chapter 11 exit plan, a proposal that would reduce its debt and settle litigation the company faces over its production of opioids for roughly $1.72 billion, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. A trial addressing the drugmaker’s chapter 11 reorganization plan opened Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Mallinckrodt sought court protection early last year with the framework of a deal already in hand to resolve its opioid liabilities. The trial could last several weeks. Financial advisers hired by Mallinckrodt were questioned yesterday about business projections and other metrics underpinning the restructuring plan. The value of the company once it leaves chapter 11 is projected to be between about $5.2 billion and $5.7 billion, court papers say. Dublin-based Mallinckrodt is among a handful of drugmakers that turned to bankruptcy recently to resolve a deluge of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic. As with other drugmakers that have sought chapter 11, settlement funds would be used to combat opioid addiction, which increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mallinckrodt is also seeking to settle liability over pricing for its H.P. Acthar Gel drug, which costs roughly $38,000 a vial and is used treat infantile spasms, multiple sclerosis and other conditions.

A unit of French advertising company Publicis Groupe SA on Friday lost a bid to dismiss a lawsuit by Massachusetts' attorney general claiming it helped OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. Publicis Health had called Attorney General Maura Healey's lawsuit an unprecedented attempt to sue an advertising agency over a manufacturer's marketing of its products. It called her allegations conclusory and said she mischaracterized documents. But Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Brian Davis said Healey brought "non-speculative" claims under the state's public nuisance law and consumer protection statute that could move forward. He pointed to allegations in Healey's complaint, filed in May, that he said showed Publicis "played an integral part in developing marketing strategies" to boost opioid sales from 2010 to 2019. Davis said those marketing campaigns were designed to get doctors "to use more OxyContin, prescribe higher doses and prescribe it for longer periods of time for patients." Healey said she was pleased Davis "rejected Publicis' attempt to skirt responsibility for its marketing campaigns."

Credit Suisse Group AG and Community Health Systems Inc. have been sued over the 2020 bankruptcy of Quorum Health Corp., facing allegations that their actions burdened the hospital operator with more than $1.2 billion in debt, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Publicly traded Community Health Systems founded Quorum in 2015 and spun it off a year later. Credit Suisse served as an adviser during the spinoff. When Quorum filed for bankruptcy in April 2020 with roughly $1.3 billion in debt, it said it was financially and operationally troubled from the start. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., by litigation trustee Daniel Golden and by Wilmington Savings Fund Society, which represents unsecured bondholders who are among the creditors who have received less than 10 cents on the dollar of what they are owed. During bankruptcies, a litigation trustee often files and manages lawsuits on creditors’ behalf. According to the lawsuit, Community Health caused Quorum to take on more than $1.2 billion in debt, with proceeds paid to Community Health as a dividend. “No reasonable fiduciary acting in QHC’s best interest would have agreed to burden QHC with that amount of debt, or to pay the proceeds to CHS as a dividend without receiving any value in return,” the lawsuit said. Community Health tapped its investment banker, Credit Suisse, to “nominally” serve as Quorum’s investment banker during the spinoff, according to the lawsuit.