Author: Ring of Fire Staff

It does not come as a surprise that extreme conservative ideologue billionaires are working to spread misinformation and incite tension, this time in the form of more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit the science behind climate change. Two trusts, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund were created as way for the wealthy of the extreme right to secretly invest money into anti-environmental and climate change denial groups, and they have collected millions of dollars from foundations backing the likes of the Koch Brothers and Richard Mellon Scaife. The funds, which were distributed to conservative think-tanks from 2002...

Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, McNeil, have been ordered to pay $63 million to Samantha Reckis for failure to warn that its Children’s Motrin could potentially cause life-threatening reactions. The ruling came after a five week-long trial in a case that was filed by the Reckis family in 2007. At the time, 7 year-old Samantha, who had previously taken Children’s Motrin without suffering any side-effects, was given the drug the day after Thanksgiving of 2003, in order to reduce a fever. The result was that Reckis developed toxic epidermal necrolysis, a potentially fatal skin condition that causes the...

As the first trial for Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy ASR continues, the company can no longer hide the fact that they were well aware of the risks and issues with their metal-on-metal hip implant devices as early as 2007, three years before DePuy issued a recall for its ASR XL total hip arthroplasty (THA) product. One particularly damning piece of evidence appeared in the form of a PowerPoint presentation that was previously presented at a company conference in Chicago in which the manufacturer explicitly stated that the metal-on-metal public backlash was a “threat” to the company. The evidence appeared...

Tomorrow the FDA is expected to announce that it will finally tighten regulations on makers of metal-on-metal hip implant products.  Previously, manufacturers like DePuy (a Johnson & Johnson company) were permitted to put their products on the market based on their products’ similarity to a previously-approved hip device already on the market (510(k) clearance). Even now, the decision to actually require manufacturers to conduct clinical trials and produce data supporting their product’s safety and effectiveness will not take effect immediately, and may still be modified or opposed by industry lobbyists. Whether this tightening of regulations is successful, for patients...

During the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Citigroup, Inc., one of the most well known financial institutions in the world, received billions in government bailout money. Now we learn that Citigroup has not paid federal income taxes for the last four years. And they’re not alone. Many of the largest financial institutions have moved their money offshore in order to avoid paying US taxes. At a news conference last Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed out that more than 18,000 US companies use the same single building in the Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying taxes. Meanwhile...