Fine

Let's get the whole picture. Schering-Plough Corp. was fined for manufacturing problems ["Schering to Pay a Fine of $500Million," May 18]. Abbott Laboratories paid $100million for the same problem. I'd love to know their marketing budgets and profits in comparison with the fines. Charleen Siegler Granada Hills The argument posed by the major pharmaceutical companies, that they alone can produce pure drugs and therefore should be granted exclusive rights to production, thus depriving those in need of cheaper generic drugs, lost major ground in the FDA's $500-million fine against Schering.

Stinky Honolulu bus riders soon could get soaked. The City Council is considering a bill that would impose up to a $500 fine and six months in jail for passengers convicted of being too smelly. The bill would make it illegal to have "odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system." It will be heard in committee Thursday.

News Corp.'s Fox network says it won't pay a $91,000 indecency fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for a 2003 broadcast featuring strippers at bachelor and bachelorette parties. Fox is filing a petition on behalf of the 13 owned and affiliated television stations asking the agency to reconsider the fine, spokesman Scott Grogin said. The April 7 program "Married by America" on News Corp.'s Fox network was "pandering and titillating," the FCC said in an order posted on its website Feb. 22. The FCC said at the time that the penalty would apply only to stations named in viewer complaints, rather than all Fox stations that aired the program.

A teen-age father convicted of selling his 4-month-old son for $1,000 got the maximum penalty--six months in jail and a $500 fine. Judge C. Donald Wells imposed the sentence Friday on 19-year-old Brian J. Rose, who was convicted of negotiating with a police informant to sell the boy. The mother, Patty Mineer, 21, was charged with performing an illegal adoption. Police say she handed the baby over to undercover police officers and collected the money. Her trial begins Feb. 2.

Reuben Sturman, described in a 1986 presidential report as the world's largest distributor of pornography, was sentenced Monday in Cleveland, Ohio, to 10 years in prison and fined $2.46 million for evading taxes on millions of dollars in income. Sturman, 65, who maintains a 5,610-square-foot, Tudor-style house in Van Nuys and another residence in the Cleveland area, was convicted Nov. 17 of failing to report $2.7 million in income from 1978 to 1982. U.S.

California public health officials issued $25,000 in administrative fines to 10 hospitals throughout the state, including three facilities in Orange County and two in Ventura County, for failing to comply with licensing requirements, authorities said Tuesday Among the hospitals cited was Anaheim General Hospital, which has received two previous fines and was faulted a third time for "potentially hazardous food-handling practices." Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, which has received one previous fine, was penalized for failing to ensure "safe and accurate administration of medications."

Officials in Avalon are upset over what they called a "grossly unfair" fine of $35,000 levied against the city by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for sewage discharge violations, even though the fine is less than the board initially recommended. In a March hearing, the board recommended a fine of $100,000, but reduced that on appeal after considering the city's ability to pay and Avalon officials' stated intent to keep the Avalon waste-treatment plant in compliance, said David Gildersleeve, the board's supervising engineer.

After 10 years of problems with Western Dental Services ("Western Dental Fined $1.7 Million to Settle Charges," July 1), the Department of Corporations has taken action against them. Western Dental has over 100 offices. The fine worked out to approximately $32 per week for each office--less than the cost of one filling per week. If this is the way consumers are protected by the Department of Corporations, perhaps we should be looking at alternative methods. The questions to ask are: What funds will become available to the patients harmed for corrective treatment?

A landfill operator was sentenced Friday to six to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for dumping toxic wastes into a tributary of the Youghiogheny River. William Fiore, 61, of Whitehall, operator of the Municipal & Industrial Disposal Co. in Elizabeth Township, was ordered to jail immediately by Allegheny County Judge Raymond A. Novak. Fiore was convicted by a jury of altering pipes, discharging hazardous wastes, obstructing justice, conspiracy and perjury.

The U.S. attorney's office announced Thursday that an Alhambra man had been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison and fined $7,500 after being found guilty of attempting to extort payments from an Orange County restaurant owner by the use of vandalism and threats of violence. Federal prosecutor John J. Byrne Jr.