Jacobs' unfishy fantasy contest

Move over, fantasy football fans. Here comes fantasy fishing, the latest brainchild of Minneapolis entrepreneur Irwin Jacobs. There's a guarantee of $1.7 million to participants in the game under the auspices of FLW Outdoors. Winners will be based on actual fishing results from the seven-event Wal-Mart FLW fishing series.

Participants can enter the contest at fantasyfishing.com to register their fantasy team. The fantasy winner of each event will receive $100,000, with a season-ending grand prize of $1 million for the most points.

"Fantasy sports history will be made," declared Jacobs, who believes fishing will rival NASCAR in terms of fan interest.

Hit parade It's that time of year when those inevitable contemplative lists get compiled -- the best movies, albums, top stories. So why should medical technology be any different?

SmartBrief Inc., which provides a daily news digest for the med-tech industry group AdvaMed, recently compiled its own list after surveying subscribers about issues affecting the business, both past and present. Here's an excerpt:

What were the top issues of 2007? Drug-coated stent safety (44 percent), company layoffs and cost-cutting measures (32 percent), reauthorization of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) user fee act (14 percent) and patent reform legislation (10 percent).

And what should get more attention in 2008? Medicare reimbursement that keeps pace with new technologies (35 percent), chronic disease care and early prevention (32 percent), improving the image of FDA and device-safety procedures (18 percent) and easing access to global markets (15 percent).

One of the more interesting questions: Do you anticipate strict state or federal legislation on industry gifts and compensation to doctors next year? Sixty-three percent said yes, 22 percent said no, and 15 percent said the issue will fizzle.

Charitable giving Scrooge won't care, but a Minneapolis charity ranked as one of the best when it comes to making proper use of donations. The American Refugee Committee, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that says about 3 million refugees and displaced people in nine countries benefit from its work, spends 91.2 percent of every dollar on program expenses, according to the charity watchdog website www.givespot.com. That's slightly more than Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America and slightly less than the venerable American Red Cross. The site ranking includes guides to the most effective charities and links to other sites, such as www.charitynavigator.org, to help you separate the chaff from the truly charitable.

Organic or not? A fight over organic milk spilled into court this month when lawyers filed class-action lawsuits in at least four federal courts against Target and several of its competitors. The claim? They sold "organic" milk that wasn't organic.

The suits stem from an August ruling by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that said Aurora Organic Dairy, a Boulder, Colo., farm, had broken more than a dozen of the agency's rules for what constitutes organic farming. The company supplies some of the nation's largest retailers with organic milk, including Target, Costco Wholesale Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and Wild Oats Markets Inc. The violations at Aurora included inadequate pasture for the cows, non-organic bedding and sending organic cows to conventional farms for a period before retrieving them for milking.

Aurora was put on probation for one year by the USDA.

Consumers who say they were duped by the company's practices want their money back, according to lawsuits filed in Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis and San Francisco. The plaintiffs also want punitive damages and lawyer's fees.

DAVID PHELPS, JANET MOORE AND MATT MCKinney