Saturday, April 24, 2010

Sunscreen "Battle Royale": Nearing A [Partial] Sunset?


The very-able federal District Court Judge Sue L. Robinson has entered an order in Delaware, overnight, requiring that J&J's Neutrogena unit answer two questions, and two questions only -- about whether its Ultrasheer® 100+ product formulation now contains the chemical additive DEHN, and if so, for how long. [Background, here.] Apparently, this issue is central to deciding whether J&J's unit made false and misleading advertising claims under the Lanham Act. I say "apparently", because all the actual motion papers on this particular topic were filed "under seal" -- so I am looking into a black box, as it were. Trade secrets, it seems.

Do remember, though, that J&J's Neutrogena unit has, itself, separately countersued legacy Schering-Plough (now New Merck) -- for Lanham Act violations regarding the Coppertone® products Merck now sells (via likewise allegedly false and misleading representations).

Again, to be clear -- I am reading tea leaves, here -- forgive me if I've not got it exactly right. The whole order is here (as a 3 page PDF file). The snippet:

. . . .If there is no dispute that the [Neutrogena Ultra Sheer product] now contains DEHN, what is an appropriate remedy for [the Neutrogena unit's] false and/or misleading representations regarding the [Neutrogena product]. . . .

This outcome doesn't directly affect J&J's countersuit -- but a loss here, for J&J, would make a settlement -- of both suits -- more likely.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

My perhaps naive "assumption" is that we all have so many excess metals in our bodies that we Attract the sun ... that's why we sun-burn ... If we were to relieve our bodies of the excess metals, wonder if we would all burn as readily as before? Perhaps a naive calculation of how it works but oftentimes the simplest ideas are the most accurate. Regardless, a great article ... so many BAD components to today's rather generic beauty fixes.

Anonymous said...

This article seems to infer that DEHN could be a good thing ... eliminating carcinogenic properties of the sunscreen ...

ics-ir.org/jics/archive/v7/1/.../pdf/JICS-7-1-Article-26.pdf

Would you please provide a link as to what DEHN is so that I could educate myself on this product? I may have the wrong site ... is DEHN a eucalyptus oil so to speak? Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Condor,

Did you catch this?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/merck-nycomed-to-jointly-market-copd-treatment-2010-04-26?siteid=yhoof2

I would love to hear what Salmon has to say about this compound.

Anonymous said...

Anon.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonology/SmokingCOPD/19393

My guess is you already have some thoughts on it.

Salmon

Anonymous said...

http://www.medpagetoday.com/
Pulmonology/SmokingCOPD/19393

Anonymous said...

Yeah, nasty side-effects to the class of compounds. Is this going to be a potential legal issue later on?!