America’s Lawyer E71: Hi, I’m Farron Cousins and this is America’s Lawyer. I am at the Mass Torts Made Perfect biannual legal conference. So we’re gonna be running through some of the interviews that I have conducted at this conference on a range of issues that are very important for you, the consumer. The issue of terrorism has obviously been in the news due to the recent terrorist attacks in Israel. Attorney Chris Paulos, who has been working for many years on terrorism lawsuits, weighs in. A lot of products on the market that we have talked about on this program over the years have been known to cause cancers, endocrine problems, reproductive issues, but one thing you wouldn’t typically expect that might cause cancer would be a hair relaxer, but that is what we’re seeing. Attorney Chelsie Green joins the show to explain what’s happening.
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Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Farron Cousins: Hi, I’m Farron Cousins and this is America’s Lawyer. I am at the Mass Torts Made Perfect biannual legal conference. So we’re gonna be running through some of the interviews that I have conducted at this conference on a range of issues that are very important for you, the consumer.
The issue of terrorism has obviously been in the news due to the recent terrorist attacks in Israel. I’m joined now by attorney Chris Paulos. Chris, you have been working for many years at this point on terrorism lawsuits, specifically targeting banks that have essentially been laundering money for terrorists, for decades at this point. So, I guess obviously the elephant in the room, we have to talk about this recent attack and what we know, if we know anything about any of the funding or who might be behind it in addition to Hamas.
Chris Paulos: Well, Hamas obviously is a long time terrorist organization, quasi political organization, in the Middle East. And we do know who finances Hamas and what one of their primary sources of funding is and that is the country, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And they have been a long time backer of that group as well as others. And it is part of their constitutional creation of the country, that particular version of Iran to wage jihad against Israel and Western targets, essentially. And so Hamas is one of the arms that they use to do that.
Farron Cousins: And so with Iran, they have been linked to attacks, the funding coming from the country. So is it the government of Iran where this is coming from or are they turning a blind eye to it? How does the funding mechanism work in those instances?
Chris Paulos: So it is absolutely the government of Iran. They use proxy organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and those that they have some closer operational relationships with, such as Hezbollah and Hamas or those that they basically provide safe haven, funding weapons to, and let run amuck throughout the Middle East or elsewhere. And strike secret deals like they did with Al-Qaeda, where they would give Al-Qaeda safe haven in Iran, allow them to use their financial infrastructure to fund their operations throughout the globe, but didn’t really have an obvious connection to that group because of the Shia Sunni divide that exists. But that’s how Iran is operating. They’re external, essentially military, paramilitary operations. They’re all conducted by foreign terrorist organizations that they’ve supported with large amounts of money, weapons, training, you name it. Hamas being one of the primary groups that they support.
Farron Cousins: And so obviously this is a very hot button issue whenever you’re talking about Israel and Palestine and you do have issues with what Israel has done in Palestine. But right now, this is almost, it’s related, but it’s not quite related, right. Because we’re dealing with a terrorist attack, a horrific terrorist attack. You can’t look at the footage, you cannot look at the things that have happened and justify it. You you cannot. I mean, I know I’ve seen people on social media that have attempted to, but you cannot. This is not government versus government. This is an extremist group funded by an outside country that has a vested interest in this happening. So people have to understand this different dichotomy that we are dealing with here. And another part of that dichotomy, which you and I have talked about in the past, but we gotta talk about it, is the banks. We have seen these banks, they’ve even told the Justice Department, yeah, we did it. And Justice Department says, that’s so mean of you, pay us some money, and we’re gonna, we’re done. So tell us the role that the banks play. How do they fit into the scheme?
Chris Paulos: Well, there’s many, many instances of which the leaders of these terrorist organizations and officials within Iran or other states sponsor of terror, where they will flatly say that money is the lifeblood of terrorism. That without money there can be no jihad. And there needs to be a process established for terrorist organizations to receive funding, distribute funding, and a financial infrastructure and banks are what that is. So without the assistance of those types of financial services and that type of infrastructure, terrorist organizations cannot exist. They cannot operate, they cannot pay folks to participate. They cannot pay bounties. They can’t buy weapons. They can’t do what is necessary logistically for them to be able to operate around the globe or in particular areas. So with banks, unfortunately, there are banks that are willing to turn a blind eye, not do what’s required of them in terms of knowing their customers.
And in some instances, and in a lot of the lawsuits that I handle, the banks took affirmative steps to hide transactions or to set up special departments or processes for what they call high risk customers, which is a nice way of saying our terrorist customers. So, these groups absolutely need banking infrastructure in order to operate. Iran needs to be able to get US dollar currency or that type of money because that’s essentially the most accepted currency around the globe. And they need to be able to fund these organizations in a way that gives them plausible deniability. And we know that banks around the globe, and some they’re very well known, have facilitated that. They do that through basically assisting their high risk clients in hiding transactions or moving money through the global economic system to places where that money can then either be used for terrorism, crime or other types of activities that support these groups.
Farron Cousins: So we’re talking about the banks doing more than just turning a blind eye, right? They know, oh, we suspected, but we’re not looking in that direction. This is different. This is the banks legitimately helping them to do this. Correct?
Chris Paulos: Yeah. So they, banks have an affirmative duty to know who they’re banking with, who holds accounts there, who are the beneficiaries of their accounts, and they also have an affirmative duty to report suspicious transactions, illegal transactions or transactions that may be used for criminal activity or illicit purposes. And so they absolutely make the decision not to report certain things or to handle transactions that would be normally reportable. And that’s affirmative conduct on their part. They have to basically decide not to live up to the standards that the government or regulatory body set for themselves, and also the banking industry sets for themselves. So it is active participation in this type of conduct.
Farron Cousins: So, I mentioned briefly earlier when the US Justice Department, they caught the banks doing this, which bank was that? Because what was it, a $2 billion fine they paid, I think?
Chris Paulos: Yeah. There’s been a whole bunch of banks, but the ones that were probably most widely reported would be HSBC, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank. These are banks that are frequently getting fined or slapped with a consent order for doing something illegal or facilitating money laundering or even screwing over their customers in some respects. So.
Farron Cousins: And so nobody, nobody in this banking system that is a global financial market, none of them have gone to jail for this, ever?
Chris Paulos: No, no.
Farron Cousins: And so it’s part of the cost of doing business because these banks get money off of these transactions, they put it in their pockets, and then finally when they get busted, okay, well we were gonna sanction you with this fine, that fine is never high enough to actually cover the profits that these banks pulled off of this.
Chris Paulos: Absolutely not.
Farron Cousins: It’s the same thing, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about banks or these corporation, the drug companies, the corporate polluters, all of them pocket far more than they ever pay out. And they know that. It’s a calculated risk that they take because they still get this big, huge profit off of it. And has it stopped? I mean, obviously the DOJ looked over their shoulders one time. Has it stopped now?
Chris Paulos: No, absolutely not. They’ve been, I call them recidivist criminal banks. Essentially, when they get fined for one type of conduct, they may shut that department down or make what look like changes to their business operations. But as we see time and time again, they’re getting busted for doing something else, or finding another way around counter-terrorism financing sanctions, money laundering obligations and so forth. It’s just, it’s a way that they’ve decided to do business. And like you said, paying these fines or being confronted with a criminal or civil penalty is simply a routine cost of business for them.
Farron Cousins: And I do think it’s interesting, to kind of bring it back to the terrorism aspect, because coming of age during the 9/11 time and you hear everything about these terrorists. Like, it’s this unsophisticated group. They don’t have an apparatus. They’re hiding in their caves. I mean, that was the talking point we heard all over the media. They’re hiding in their caves, plotting these. That’s not at all how this works.
Chris Paulos: No, no.
Farron Cousins: It is far more sophisticated and I don’t wanna say than they get credit for, you just shouldn’t give them credit for anything. But I think the public, as in general, underestimates how intricate and sophisticated these networks are.
Chris Paulos: Absolutely. And that does terrorist organizations a favor to consider them these backwards type folks or these kind of just basically unorganized, untalented, unsophisticated groups. That’s essentially playing into their hand. They prefer to be thought of that way. But we know that many of them, and most certainly the most prolific and active terrorist organizations are receiving and the backing from state organizations. So you need to assume that they are sophisticated as any foreign governmental entity or state, and have the resources of a country behind them.
Farron Cousins: So Chris, last time you and I spoke, we talked about an issue that happened right in our hometown of Pensacola, Florida. So just to kind of recap that, we had a Saudi Arabian, or Saudi National, I guess, who was over here as part of a training. We have this agreement with the Saudi Arabian government. They come here, they do their training, and he comes on our military base one day and he starts opening fire. So, where are we? And regular viewers here, if you don’t remember, go back, look at the interview that I did with Chris Paulos here. So kind of just give us an update on where that one is because I know at one point wasn’t there, you were having to reach out to Congress or, I mean?
Chris Paulos: Yeah, so the case is still active. We’ve been litigating it. Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia denies any wrongdoing and is fighting us tooth and nail to have the case dismissed. We have maintained the lawsuit to date. The latest kind of turn in the case is the court has asked the Justice Department to chime in. They elected not to file a statement of interest because, and rightfully so, I don’t think it is something that should be dealt with by the executive branch or Congress. It’s gotta be held, these folks gotta be held accountable in a court of law, and it needs to be in the judicial branch. And I think that’s the best method for seeking redress for these clients. But when the attack first happened, there was a lot of press about how sorry Saudi Arabia was, how they were gonna take care of these families, and a lot of lip service that was done. And I think that probably contributed to this kind of falling out of the news cycle.
What you hear a lot about is, you know, obviously Khashoggi, Jamal Khashoggi, rightfully so and Saudi Arabia sport washing. But people seem to have forgotten what happened just a few years ago in Pensacola at the hands of a officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force, and the deaths and destruction that he caused while here in the uniform of that military. And what we know and what we’ve learned through the case is that he was a member of Al-Qaeda before he ever joined the Saudi military, which obviously should have been flagged by the Saudi military when he signed up. He was nominated to come to the United States, which was a very rare thing to happen. Very few pilots get nominated to come, and he was active on Twitter and on social media with his extremist views, but still received that nomination. And we believe that he was supported by other Saudis, officials and other folks in the Saudi government throughout that time period and leading up to the attack that he committed on US soil.
Farron Cousins: Unbelievable. Chris, what you’re doing is so much, I think, no offense, I love all the lawyers at the firm. I think it’s so much more intense. It’s so much more difficult. You’ve really been given such a hard task with this, but so far you’re doing an amazing job with it. And I appreciate what you do. I appreciate on behalf of Pensacola, what you’re doing. And of course, across the globe, what you are doing is just absolutely so helpful. So thank you so much for sitting and talking with us today.
Chris Paulos: I appreciate it. Thank you, Farron.
Farron Cousins: A lot of products on the market that we have talked about on this program over the years have been known to cause cancers and all sorts of issues. Endocrine problems, reproductive issues, but one thing you wouldn’t typically expect that might cause cancer would be a hair relaxer, but that is what we’re seeing. I’ve got attorney Chelsie Green with me here, Chelsie, this is an absolutely just kind of mind blowing case, really. Because what’s happening is, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve got these hair relaxers that are now being linked to cancer in women.
Chelsie Green: Correct. So think of a beauty product, a product that you’re applying to essentially help professionally, help you just to feel better about yourself, you’re applying to yourself in order to gain confidence, and ultimately that product is causing you extreme harm. Ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, in some cases endometrial cancer.
Farron Cousins: And this is a hair relaxer. It’s got chemicals in it, things that giant names I can’t even begin to try to pronounce here.
Chelsie Green: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: And so what’s happening, I guess, you put it on your scalp, and so the chemicals just seep into the skin?
Chelsie Green: Yes. A lot of people are unaware that what actually comes in the hair relaxer box, it’s multiple products. So it’s not one product that has this one set of chemicals that you’re applying to your hair. So the box comes with the base, and that’s the cream or the lotion that’s typically put on your hair. But in order to use the base, you have to put in the activator. And the activator has its own set of chemicals that you’ve now added to the base. And now you’re applying all of this to the most absorbent feature of skin that we have on our body, and that’s our scalp. The hair relaxer manufacturers try to tell us, protect your scalp. Don’t put the product on your scalp. Apply a petroleum jelly or some type of protected layer on your scalp before you apply the hair relaxer. But we know that these harsh chemicals are seeping through any layer of protection that we could potentially provide.
Farron Cousins: So, they’re telling you, or allegedly, they’re telling you protect your scalp, so obviously if they’re telling you to protect it, they’ve gotta know that there’s some kind of danger here.
Chelsie Green: Exactly. And ultimately, I believe that the hair relaxer manufacturers wanted to warn against the burns or lesions that the product causes. So they tried to say that’s what the scalp protectors were for. But we know when you mix that combination of chemicals to your scalp, ultimately the end product cannot be healthy for the consumers.
Farron Cousins: And so obviously this is a relatively new case. But from what I’ve seen, there’s close to 300 so far, absolutely documented cases, people involved in or I guess plaintiffs at this point 300, and that is expected to grow. Am I correct?
Chelsie Green: Yes. Actually, that number has recently just went up. In the litigation there was a deadline against Revlon, one of our manufacturers, or defendants in the hair relaxer litigation is coming out of bankruptcy. So they had a deadline for us to file all complaints against Revlon by September 14th. As of September 14th, over 7,000 cases are filed in the Northern District of Illinois.
Farron Cousins: Oh my goodness. Okay. So that, yeah, that’s a little more than 300.
Chelsie Green: Right. Three weeks, 7,000 cases.
Farron Cousins: Wow. Absolutely astonishing. And so obviously the hair relaxers, this is a product typically involved with women. But it is something that men have used as well. The cancers that we’re seeing, as you mentioned, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer. Have we seen anything in men so far? Or could this be almost like a female specific type of chemical reaction?
Chelsie Green: You know, I think because the studies are so new, the trials and the studies are so new in this particular arena that we will see some implications or effects to men as well. Men have used this product historically. There were relaxers just made for men specifically to use. And so I do believe that it has caused them some reproductive harm as well. But yes, you’re correct. Right now, this litigation, our experts, I’m heavily involved in the science workup on this litigation. They’re all ready to opine on uterine cancer and ovarian cancer.
Farron Cousins: So what kind of timetable, is this the kind of product, forgive me, I’m not big on hair products. Is this something that is used on a regular basis, a monthly basis? Is it a yearly treatment? How does it, how frequent do women use it?
Chelsie Green: Yes. So typically a hair relaxer is applied once every four to six weeks. Ultimately, some consumers or women will use that product a lot more, depending on your new growth, how quickly your hair grows. So if your hair grows faster than the average, then you could be using this product every two weeks.
Farron Cousins: Wow. So that’s a lot of exposure and these chemicals are obviously building up in the system at that point. Probably faster than the body could even hope to rid of them. And with the women who have come on as the plaintiffs here, just kind of a ballpark, how long have they been using the products before these developed?
Chelsie Green: Oh gosh, since adolescence.
Farron Cousins: Oh wow.
Chelsie Green: I mean, this is, culturally hair relaxers have been used from hundreds of, hundreds of years ago. Hair relaxer use began during slavery because that’s when all of the issues with black hair came out. When black women weren’t seen as beautiful or their hair wasn’t seen as professional. So this has been lineage, generations of use. And it’s typically starting at about age five into adulthood.
Farron Cousins: Wow. So we’re not just dealing with people who say, oh, well, I was 25 and decided, ah, I’m gonna change it up. So we actually have people that essentially grow up on it.
Chelsie Green: Exactly. This is not a typical product that you would pick up later on. Some do obviously, pick it up later, but this historically has been used since adolescents into adulthood, and it’s gonna be decades of use of hair relaxers.
Farron Cousins: And so what brands are we specifically kind of seeing here?
Chelsie Green: Yeah, so, we’re seeing L’Oreal has the largest, I believe, market share. And that’s typically gonna be your dark and lovely brands. We also have Motions, which is another hair relaxer. Revlon products obviously, they have a number of relaxers. There’s gonna be some smaller salon based hair relaxers also, where they’re not typically sold over the shelf. You go into your beauty shops and that’s where those design, affirm and typically band two products are used in the salons.
Farron Cousins: Wow. This again, is one of the cases that really just kind of astounds me because it’s not something that most people would think of. Almost like a lotion, you know? Okay. I just put my lotion on. There’s no problem with it. And it’s scary. I mean, talking about these, being with the law firm and all of the things you see and you’re like, oh my God, I’ve used this product that the firm is now going after. It’s very scary to be a consumer because we see so many problems. But listen, Chelsie, this is a wonderful story. We will get you back on as this progresses because again, I read this morning that there were 300 and now there’s 7,000. So we will keep up on this. And you’re doing a phenomenal job with it. Thank you so much.
Chelsie Green: Thank you for having me.
Mike Papantonio: Surgical mesh products have been causing problems in patients for years, depending on the brand and the type of mesh used. But now new complaints are emerging about a surgical mesh that was initially viewed as a safer alternative to artificial material. Joining me to talk about this is Tim O’Brien. Tim, I think anybody in this business understands you are the leading lawyer that’s tried more of these. You understand more about mesh than any lawyer I can put in front of me. I don’t want you to be modest. That’s just the truth. Your results have been incredible, and that’s, your results really have been centered around artificial mesh and you’ve gotten incredible mesh. This is a different deal though, isn’t it? This is brand new for you to take a look at and for you to say, how do I go to trial with this case?
Tim O’Brien: Right. This deals with a biologic mesh made by Integra and the chief brand is SurgiMend, but we by and large stayed away from the biologic meshes because I frankly thought that was the future, the safer future for where hernia repair and other soft tissue repair was going to go. But as it turns out, I got a call from a client in Mississippi, and the more I looked into it, I said, you know what? This particular company and its particular products need to be explored. And so as I peeled back the layers of the onion, I realized that this company is not one of the good actors in terms of the biologic meshes that we all know are such an important part of the armamentarium.
Mike Papantonio: In other words, you favor, obviously anybody that knows this business would favor biologic mesh over the completely artificial mesh, which started off basically as fishing line that they were using in human bodies. You tried those early cases, you saw the most damning documents. I saw you interviewed one time where you were talking about how bad the documents were in the artificial mesh, I’m gonna call it, fishing line. I know it’s not fishing line, but it’s the same material. So excuse me as I do that, but it’ll keep us in this conversation. The fishing line mesh was something that you found that the company understood, clearly, created a physical problem, biological physiological problem in the human body that caused serious, serious issues, health issues with people, and you tried those cases. Tell us a little bit about that, and then I wanna jump into biologics so the viewers can understand the difference here.
Tim O’Brien: Sure. Chiefly, it’s made with polyester, these artificial meshes, either polyester or polypropylene. The cases we’ve been dealing with are the polypropylene cases and chiefly with the company known as Bard, which is the market leader. And the chief brand of polypropylene they used was a brand called Marlex. And Marlex, since the year 2004, had on its material safety data sheet, the safety data sheet, do not use this. This is not fit for use in humans. Bard knew about it. Bard continued to make it, and hundreds of thousands of patients have received these Marlex mesh products that are causing things such as bowel perforations, death, sepsis, chronic pain.
Mike Papantonio: Look, I wanna ask you this question. You’ve had just years of experience in the courtroom as a, just a wonderful trial lawyer. I’ve been there as you know, for many decades with you. But I’m wondering, what is it in your mind that causes a company like Bard to say, yeah, we really messed up. We caused real injury to this person. In some instances it killed this person. And they still aren’t willing to come to the table, carry on a conversation and say, how do we deal with this problem? How do we fix the problem and how do we compensate these people that we’ve just caused huge physical suffering for? How do you do that?
Tim O’Brien: It’s a numbers game for them. I mean, because right now with Bard, there’s over 30,000 cases pending, and I’m leading most of those in Ohio with Kelsey Stokes. And to them it’s a numbers game because each and every trial that has come up so far, when we show the implanting doctor that Marlex document the MSDS, and we say, had you known this, would you have put this in the patient? And they say, no, I would not have. And even to this day, Bard has never advised the doctors, you know, we’ve got this prohibited polypropylene in patients. So they know O’Brien up there with his trials, they’re coming up one at a time, they’re playing a waiting game, a numbers game.
Mike Papantonio: So I heard you say one time that the corporate mentality is that gee whizz we’ll do the waiting game, one trial, two trials at a time. Maybe they try five cases a year. There’s thousands of cases out there. Every year they stay in business, they’re making billions of dollars. So at the end of the day, if they’ve made $10 billion and they have to settle for $1 billion, they’ve made a $9 billion profit. That’s the mentality, isn’t it?
Tim O’Brien: Right. The trial we have coming up very soon is a PerFix Plug. And this, all that is, is the fishing line that’s woven into a mesh. They get it hot and they put it over a cone, looks like a badminton birdie. And then they have the doctors put it into patients. It costs them about $6 to make, they sell it for over $180 each. The gross margin is 89%. Their vice president of sales said, we are the cash machine. We are a cash machine.
Mike Papantonio: Did they use those words cash machine?
Tim O’Brien: That was from the vice president of sales, yes. And when I took his deposition, he said, we have very high profitability, and we being the company that makes these meshes, Davol, the subsidiary, we are the cash machine fueling the rest of Bard. That’s why they don’t take these things off the market.
Mike Papantonio: You and I have talked time and time again, we see this conduct by corporate America. It’s sometimes akin to just manslaughter. I mean, there’s no other ways you can describe it. When people die with various products, people die, the company knew the chances of that person dying, projecting that that person would die somewhere down the line are horrendous. The numbers are horrendous. Department of Justice doesn’t do a thing about it. We have actually packaged up information about the most awful cases I can describe all the way back to Factor VIII, which was a product that killed hemophiliacs. And the product was contaminated with HIV virus and they took it off the market here and then sold it all over the world and killed thousands of people all over the world with aids. We packaged that up, we gave it to the Department of Justice, they did nothing about it. You see the same thing happening here, don’t you?
Tim O’Brien: I do see the same thing happening here because what the DOJ says is, you know, that’s an FDA problem. And the problem is the FDA doesn’t have any prosecutorial arm like the DOJ does. FDA is an administrative body, it’s a regulatory body, can’t prosecute and put people away. So the FDA underfunded, under-resourced, undermanned is left to regulate all of these thousands of tens of thousands of hernia mesh products, and other implants, and really not have the people to do it. So what does that tell us? It tells us they are not looking to make work for themselves and it takes something outlandish like the Integra SurgiMend situation for the FDA even to come to your door and say, maybe we better take a look around.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So, as you go forward with the mesh case, the artificial mesh case, you’ll be feeding that, government knows about it. You’ll be giving that information. Here’s the problem. The folks that are passing on the case with DOJ or the FDA, wherever it is, that governmental entity they end up going to work for corporate America. They go to work for these companies. Isn’t that kind of part of the plan? Isn’t that part of the problem? You can’t really trust the people overseeing this because tomorrow they’re gonna be making a million dollars a year working for the company.
Tim O’Brien: We have seen time and time again, specifically with the FDA, from the standpoint of the scientists and the FDA has scientists, and when the scientists start creating problems, they very often either get picked up by that company that is making the problems that the FDA has perceived. And then the whistleblower is essentially taken in, taken away from a $200,000 a year job to a seven figure job with stock options, easy math. And with respect to the DOJ, you’re talking about lawyers, and with regard to my experience has been there are not enough lawyers, careful lawyers at these companies to really prevent that. And look at how, this may just be more than a check. This could rise to the level of what you discuss and there’s just not enough lawyering going on, careful lawyering going on, in these big companies to prevent the problems that you talk about.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. You’re talking about in-house lawyers. And if they do, they don’t speak up sometimes because they’re afraid they’re gonna lose their jobs. Tim, thank you for joining me. Okay. I wanna do another interview with you down the road. I wanna talk to you about the biological mesh. Okay.
Tim O’Brien: Alright, sounds good.
Farron Cousins: And that’s all the time we have for this week. But don’t forget, these segments will be available throughout the coming week, right here on the Ring of Fire YouTube channel. So please make sure that you are subscribed. This has been America’s Lawyer, I’m Farron Cousins in for Mike Papantonio, and we’ll see you next time.
