Product Tampering

Amgen Inc. told health-care providers it has received reports of tampering involving its two best-selling products, Epogen and Neupogen. The letter, dated Feb. 13, was released through the Food and Drug Administration's MedWatch system. Amgen's letter said the company received three reports of tampering. The Thousand Oaks-based company said the tops on eight vials of the drugs, which come in liquid form, had been removed and the liquid replaced with another solution.

James O'Keefe, the conservative activist who was arrested Monday with three others after they allegedly posed as telephone repairmen to illegally enter the New Orleans office of a U.S. senator, broke his weeklong silence Friday and conceded that he may have made a mistake. "On reflection, I could have used a different approach to this investigation," O'Keefe said in a statement posted on the website BigGovernment .org, "particularly given the sensitivities that people understandably have about security in a federal building."

In a town where beer is champagne and bratwurst is caviar, the plump, German luncheon link has become embroiled in a bizarre racial dispute that is sizzling hotter this summer than a backyard barbecue. The City Council Friday voted to censure Michael McGee, a flamboyant black alderman who has previously threatened urban guerrilla violence against whites, for his part in a product tampering scare last weekend.

The FBI arrested a suspect Wednesday in a computer-tampering incident at the headquarters of the agency that runs most of California's electrical grid. Lonnie Charles Denison, 32, an employee of San Diego-based SAIC, a contractor working at the California Independent System Operator, was charged with destruction of an energy facility following an investigation by the Sacramento Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Saying unions must become involved in community issues if they are to survive, retail clerks and meatcutters Wednesday launched a campaign to help consumers guard against product tampering. "We can be the first line of defense against tampering in the retail industry," said Ricardo Icaza, president of 30,000-member Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers in metropolitan Los Angeles.

It didn't matter that Sudafed 12-hour capsules came in tamper-resistant packaging. Someone got into them anyway last month, lacing them with cyanide that left two people dead and one ill. And while Burroughs Wellcome, which makes Sudafed, issued a nationwide recall, federal and state officials found several more deadly packages. Everyone seems surprised that this could have happened.

A woman who reported finding sewing needles in a can of Coca-Cola at the height of a hoax over foreign objects in soft drink cans pleaded guilty Friday to tampering. Deborah Sue McGuire told police in June that she opened a can of Coke and found nine sewing needles. She pleaded guilty to a federal charge of making a false statement about product tampering.

Firm Warns of Product Tampering: Everfresh Inc. of Franklin Park, Ill., said consumers in 18 states, including California, should look for possible tampering of its 10-ounce bottles of Everfresh Grapefruit Juice. It said the bottles involved were from lot No. C1225. Pennsylvania officials and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating several cases of apparent tampering, the company said. Thirty bottles of its grapefruit juice found in the Hatfield and Reading, Pa.

Some 13,300 chocolate Easter bunnies distributed to schools and other fund-raising groups were recalled in 15 states, including California, because of several complaints about glass or similar objects found in the candy, company officials said Thursday. New Jersey authorities said testing confirmed that a sliver of glass was embedded in one piece of the candy made by Scott's of Wisconsin that was turned over to state officials for testing. No injuries were reported.

A woman pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal charges that she spiked capsules of over-the-counter medicine with cyanide, killing her husband and a woman. U.S. Magistrate Philip K. Sweigert set a Feb. 16 trial for Stella Nickell, 44, of Auburn. Nickell was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on two counts of causing death by product tampering, involving Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules tainted with cyanide.

A food-plant worker pleaded not guilty Monday to tampering with wontons manufactured at his workplace. Albert Vidal Torres, 33, of Ontario was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of inserting foreign material into the dumplings on three dates in 2003 while working for Golden Crown Foods Inc. in the city of Industry, according to the U.S. attorney's office. The company destroyed $23,000 worth of food after customers complained, authorities said.

Pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful, which became a target of animal rights activists because of research the company did into its juice's medical benefits, said Wednesday that it had stopped testing on animals. "Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice has ceased all animal testing, and we have no plans to do so in the future," Lynda and Stewart Resnick wrote to all Pom retailers by e-mail or post Wednesday. The Resnicks own Los Angeles-based Roll International Corp.

Jars of Gerber baby food again were yanked from the shelves of an Irvine grocery store after a customer reported finding a note in one container saying it had been poisoned, police said Thursday. It was the second incident in less than a month in which parents feeding their babies have discovered a threatening note in a jar of Gerber banana yogurt dessert, said spokesman Lt. Jeff Love of the Irvine Police Department. Stores throughout the city have been warned about possible tampering.

So, 76 of Sammy Sosa's bats were sent to radiology and found to be free of infection and corked insertion. The diagnosis would suggest that the Chicago Cub right fielder was right, that in a game situation Tuesday night he had simply made the mistake of going to the plate with a bat that had been corked to better allow him to put on a show for fans in batting practice, and for that he was sorry and apologetic. No harm, no foul? Give me a break.

Say it ain't Sosa? Say it ain't sawdust. You had to blink once or twice, especially if you weren't wearing protective woodshop goggles, if you tuned into ESPN midday Wednesday and saw two grown men gripping both ends of a baseball bat and another man sawing the bat in half. In simpler times, the three national faces of Chicago Cubs baseball belonged to Tinker, Evers and Chance.

With one swing, Sammy Sosa shattered a bat and, perhaps, his image Tuesday night. In the first inning of the Chicago Cubs' 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Sosa's bat splintered as he hit a ground ball to second base. Catcher Toby Hall retrieved the pieces and showed them to plate umpire Tim McClelland.

A federal district court jury in Seattle convicted a woman of killing her husband and another woman by lacing their Extra-Strength Excedrin with cyanide in the nation's first death-by-product-tampering trial. The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated almost five days before returning the verdict against Stella Nickell. Nickell, 44, of suburban Auburn, was convicted on each count she faced, two of causing death by tampering with a product involved in interstate commerce and three of tampering.

The daughter of the first person in the nation charged with causing death by tampering with over-the-counter drug capsules is prepared to testify for the prosecution, government lawyers said Monday. The disclosure was contained in a pretrial brief filed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Joanne Maida as jury selection began in the trial of Stella Nickell, 44, in U.S. District Court.

The FBI arrested a teenager accused of slipping razor blades into three apple pies at the McDonald's where he worked. A customer who bit into the dessert suffered a cut on the lip. Adam Joseph Fontenot, 18, was arrested Tuesday and jailed on tampering charges. He could face 10 years in prison. The incident occurred Nov. 24 at the restaurant in Eunice, 150 miles west of New Orleans. Federal prosecutor James McManus did not say what the motive might have been, but he said Fontenot knew the

A pharmacist who diluted chemotherapy drugs for thousands of cancer patients was sentenced to the maximum of 30 years in prison Thursday after the victims' families tearfully told how the scheme had cost them precious days with their loved ones. "Your crimes are a shock to the civilized conscience," U.S. District Judge Ortrie Smith told Robert R. Courtney. "They are beyond understanding." Courtney, 50, was also ordered to pay $10.4 million in restitution and a $25,000 fine.