Northfield Labs v. Your First Amendment

The AP reports that a California Superior Court judge has barred the San Diego Reader, a free weekly newspaper, from publishing information obtained under the California Public Records Act about a synthetic blood substitute undergoing testing, saying it would compromise some trade secrets of Evanston's Northfield Laboratories Inc.

Northfield Labs sued the Reader and its publisher last month to stop the paper from running a story about Polyheme, a synthetic red blood cell substitute designed for trauma victims.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the newspaper should challenge the order.

"I don't think a federal court judge would be as clueless," Dalglish said. "There is absolutely nothing out there that is more destructive of the First Amendment right of free press than an illegal prior restraint."

Last summer, the S.D. Reader reported that Polyheme was being tested exclusively on trauma patients from minority neighborhoods who were too ill to consent.

via Romanesko