Database

Glyphosate Glyphosate[1] (GP) was introduced into the market in the early 1970s. It is a widely approved and widely used herbicide. If it caused injury during foreseeable use then liability insurance would be involved. Given both professional and amateur usage, the foreseeable uses would be many and non-compliant standards of use would be unsurprising. Generic and specific causation would be the key tests of liability. News Recent interest in causation includes requests to regulators to label foods as containing traces of glyphosate on the grounds that it may cause cancer. This would have a significant impact on sales of food and glyphosate. This follows on from a 2015 decision made by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to classify glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Californian law requires that it adopts IARC decisions[2]. The DeWayne Johnson (aged 46) claim for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) recently[3] reached a key step in awarding damages. The claimant made

Mania from cured meat? New research from the USA identifies an association between the consumption of cured meat products and mania. The evidence comes from both human medical cases and from studies of rats. Mania is a component of bipolar disorder and is managed by medication such as lithium. It is a recurrent problem often associated with poor decision-making. Liability for first party loss caused by legally defective cured meat products could extend to the financial decisions made during an episode of mania. Third parties might include the victims of road traffic accidents. What did the research show? Compared with controls, a history of eating cured meat preparations was significantly associated with being in the mania group (mean age 34, 66% female); adjusted odds ratio = 3.49 (2.24–5.45). There was no significant association with undercooked meat, raw meat, undercooked fish or raw fish. A history of eating cured meat preparations was not associated with a diagnosis of schizophren

Modelling of emerging liability risks can facilitate product launches, improve insurance policies and improve financial sustainability   Emerging risks have, by definition, always been a challenge for companies and the insurance industry. Being new, there’s relatively little data with which to assess the probability of such risks materialising and the severity and frequency of ill-effects if they do. As companies and industries change ever-more quickly, the pace of innovation also increases, and so arguably does the emergence of new risks. History teaches us that the products, trends and technologies we assume to be safe and adopt as part of our everyday lives are not without their risks. For example, while the toxic properties of asbestos are now well-known, it was once considered a ‘wonder material’. Businesses could be healthier and more sustainable if they could identify significant new liability risks sooner – in other words, if they knew what the next asbestos would be. Unfo

Lockton have very kindly posted an article on the problem of liability ENIDs. The article is aimed at insurers but also professional insurance buyers – who are their  primary audience.

The current recipe for profit-making populist sport rests on the observation that the fans identify with the players. Player-fan ‘relationships’ are manufactured and tuned to appeal to the paying public. Its all part of the business of making money from sport-related entertainment. Almost by definition then, brain injury in populist contact sports such as ice hockey and American Football is a cause for public concern. Those in charge of sport could benefit from the sympathy generated by claims of degenerative brain disease. By inflaming public opinion the public then act as the voice of the injured player and so the sentimental bond is strengthened. This will be good for the sentimental player-focused business model. But will it be good for the players? One result of the clamor to speak out for the player is the development of blood testing for evidence of possible brain injury. If a player knew they were risking a non-trivial degenerative brain disease in exchange for manu

This study has many high quality characteristics including high participation rates, prospective design, and objective data on TBI and dementia and a several medical confounders. It can be found here: Jesse R Fann et al. Lancet Psychiatry http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30065-8. The study includes 126,734 dementia cases in the analysis; 6,374 had experienced TBI. A potentially powerful study. The data clearly shows an increased risk of dementia diagnosis within the 2 years following TBI. However, there is no variation in risk between 4 and 14 years after TBI, suggesting a completely uniform acceleration, which would be hard to explain. There is also decreasing risk as age increases, yet older people are more vulnerable to dementia. This also is hard to explain. The authors call for more to be done to prevent TBI. Dementia is a growing problem. Motor and sports insurers would be especially sensitive to this issue if it turned out that TBI was a legal cause of dementia. Especiall