Products Liability--The Expansion of Fraud, Negligence, and Strict Tort Liability

While judicial acceptance of this concept of strict tort liability has been proceeding apace, far less dramatic but equally significant developments have been occurring with respect to both negligence and fraud liability. The possibility of recovering for a seller\u27s misrepresentations concerning his product has been enhanced by a plaintiff-oriented judicial redefinition of two elements of a cause of action for fraud: defendant\u27s knowledge of the falsity of his representation and plaintiff\u27s reliance upon the deception. At the same time, negligence liability has often come to resemble liability without fault as courts continue to deemphasize, as a prerequisite to the application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, the rule that a defendant must have had, at the time of the mishap, exclusive possession and control of the instrumentality which caused a plaintiff\u27s injury. This Comment will particularize and analyze these and other developments relative to tort liability for defective products, with the objects of setting forth the present state of the law and of suggesting the general course that future developments should take

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 21,000 cases and 95,000 controls identifies new risk loci for atopic dermatitis

Genetic association studies have identified 21 loci associated with atopic dermatitis risk predominantly in populations of European ancestry. To identify further susceptibility loci for this common, complex skin disease, we performed a meta-analysis of >15 million genetic variants in 21,399 cases and 95,464 controls from populations of European, African, Japanese and Latino ancestry, followed by replication in 32,059 cases and 228,628 controls from 18 studies. We identified ten new risk loci, bringing the total number of known atopic dermatitis risk loci to 31 (with new secondary signals at four of these loci). Notably, the new loci include candidate genes with roles in the regulation of innate host defenses and T cell function, underscoring the important contribution of (auto)immune mechanisms to atopic dermatitis pathogenesis

New loci associated with birth weight identify genetic links between intrauterine growth and adult height and metabolism.

Birth weight within the normal range is associated with a variety of adult-onset diseases, but the mechanisms behind these associations are poorly understood. Previous genome-wide association studies of birth weight identified a variant in the ADCY5 gene associated both with birth weight and type 2 diabetes and a second variant, near CCNL1, with no obvious link to adult traits. In an expanded genome-wide association meta-analysis and follow-up study of birth weight (of up to 69,308 individuals of European descent from 43 studies), we have now extended the number of loci associated at genome-wide significance to 7, accounting for a similar proportion of variance as maternal smoking. Five of the loci are known to be associated with other phenotypes: ADCY5 and CDKAL1 with type 2 diabetes, ADRB1 with adult blood pressure and HMGA2 and LCORL with adult height. Our findings highlight genetic links between fetal growth and postnatal growth and metabolism