The insurance industry is asking government regulators to lower the amount of money life insurance companies must hold in reserve to cover policyholders. The American Council of Life Insurers, an industry group, says that such concessions are necessary to support the financial outlook of the industry during the current economic crisis. However, current and former state insurance regulators say that the resulting drop in consumer protection would not be well received by legislators or the public.

Karin Keegan is suing JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines after she was prevented from boarding a JetBlue flight to go to a job assignment because the male JetBlue employee said her outfit wasn’t sexy enough. When she complained to officials, they did not intervene, even after other attendants with less seniority were allowed to board. The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission approved her right to sue last year.

A man battling cancer died after police detained him for four days for driving with a license that had been suspended due to six unpaid parking tickets. In their lawsuit, his family claims that police officers denied him access to daily medication needed to keep infection and blood clots under control. The man died nine days after being arrested.

The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case where Ford Motor Co. alleges juror misconduct led the company to settle a lawsuit for $3 million. The company is seeking to void the settlement and to question jurors under oath regarding their deliberations. Rosa Martinez, paralyzed in a rollover accident in a Ford Explorer, has not received any payments from the settlement while the company appeals.

According to the FDA and Kellogg, Austin Quality Foods Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter, which had already been recalled, tested positive for salmonella. The crackers are the first consumer product to test positive in the growing outbreak linked to peanut butter and peanut paste manufactured by Peanut Corp. of America. Since the outbreak began, 474 people have reported being sickened and 6 people have died, but those numbers are believed to be lower than the actual number of cases.

It appears that drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. is close to agreeing to a $1.4 billion settlement related to a government investigation into the marketing of its top seller Zyprexa, according to a New York Times report. There were documents discovered that “show Lilly downplayed the drug’s risks and marketed it for unapproved uses” and “lawsuits have made similar claims, accusing Lilly of pushing doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for ‘off-label’ conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.”
The New York Times also reports, “The amount of the settlement is a record sum for so-called corporate whistle-blower cases,” and “among the charges, Lilly has been accused of a scheme stretching for years to persuade doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to two categories of patients — children and the elderly — for whom the drug was not federally approved and in whom its use was especially risky.”

A new study has found that about a third of newborns may be at risk for respiratory distress and other problems because an elective C-section was performed too early. According to the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 36 percent of 13,258 elective repeat C-sections from 1999 to 2002 were performed sooner than the 39 full weeks of gestation recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Researchers note that babies delivered by C-section prior to 39 weeks are about twice as likely to have at least one birth-related problem.

Health officials are reporting that a salmonella outbreak has sickened 388 people in 42 states. According to a spokesman at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 70 people have been hospitalized as a result of the outbreak. State and national health officials are working to determine the source of the outbreak but have yet to determine whether the cases are related.

A group of veterans have filed a federal lawsuit against several government agencies alleging that they were unwittingly exposed to dangerous chemicals and other agents as part of Cold War-era experiments. In the lawsuit, the veterans say they were never properly informed of dangers associated with the experiments. The lawsuit seeks medical monitoring and care for plaintiffs allegedly sickened by the experiments.

A North Carolina nursing home may be ordered to pay as much as $50,000 in fines for safety violations that led to the death of an Alzheimer’s disease patient. According to the Charlotte Observer, the Five Oaks Manor in Concord failed to properly monitor the 87-year-old resident and failed prevent her from accessing a loading dock where she fell. The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services must now determine whether to enforce the recommended fines.