Monthly Archives: April 2010

April 30, 2010

Massachusetts Lags While Movement To Curb Texting While Driving Gains Steam

Today, as you probably know, was “No Phone Zone” pledge day, a day when Oprah Winfrey dedicated her show to the dangers of using a cell phone while driving and urged Americans to pledge not to use their cell phones in their cars. The day prior to Oprah’s “No Phone Zone” day, Michigan became the [...]

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Posted in Car Accident, Car Crash

April 27, 2010

Why Your Next Motorcycle Should Have Anti-Lock Brakes

Antilock brakes have become standard on cars, but motorcycles still lag behind in adopting them. Harley-Davidson, for example, only began offering them as an option in 2008, so most bikes out there are unequipped. Many motorcyclists think they simply don’t need antilock brakes. Now, however, comes a new Insurance Institute For Highway Safety study that [...]

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Posted in Motorcycle Accidents

April 24, 2010

E. Coli Poisoning: Pulitzer Prizes, CDC Reports And New Legislation

A little over a week ago, the CDC announced that 2009 saw a decline in reported cases of E. coli O157 poisoning. E. coli O157:H7 is one of the strains of E. coli that is most toxic to humans and can cause one of the severest forms of food poisoning. Lest the news lead us [...]

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Posted in Contaminated Food, Food poisoning, Foodborne Illness

April 21, 2010

Weekly Roundup Of Personal Injury News

You probably saw the news a couple weeks ago that Boston Scientific’s division Guidant, LLC agreed to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor counts and pay a $296m fine in connection with its sale of defective heart devices. The backstory involves reprehensible conduct on the part of some executives: aware of the fact that these [...]

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Posted in Uncategorized

April 15, 2010

Do Doctors Downplay Patients’ Reports Of Their Symptoms?

In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, entitled “The Missing Voice of Patients in Drug-Safety Reporting,” Dr. Ethan Basch argues that doctors, by discounting and ignoring patients’ complaints about what they perceive as drug side effects may be ignoring data that could lead to earlier detection of dangerous drugs. More than [...]

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Posted in Medical Malpractice

April 13, 2010

Antiseizure, Depression Medications Linked To Increased Risk Of Suicide

CNN reports on the latest research studying the relation between Neurontin (gabapentin), Depakote and several other drugs and an increased risk of suicide, including the new Journal of the American Medical Association article on the subject.

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Posted in Uncategorized

April 9, 2010

Back Surgeries Overprescribed?

For once, the tort reform blog Overlawyered.com admits that the costs of healthcare might be driven by doctors’ incentives, rather than greedy medical malpractice lawyers, but, even in this moment of rare insight, Overlawyered can’t resist a slap at the plaintiff’s bar. In this post, Walter Olson entertains the idea that some orthopedic surgeons might [...]

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Posted in Car Accident, Car Crash, Medical Malpractice

April 9, 2010

Football Head Injuries: A Follow-Up

I’ve previously blogged about the prospect of football helmet manufacturers facing product liability lawsuits for design defects in their helmets and the resulting brain injuries that occur. This week came news that former NFL lineman Ralph Wenzel has filed a Worker’s Compensation claim that says head injuries he sustained in the course of his NFL [...]

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Posted in Brain Injury, Head Injuries, Products Liability, Sports Injuries, Worker's Compensation

April 8, 2010

FDA Approves New Yaz Label Warnings

In a regulatory letter issued yesterday, the FDA approved the use of new warning labels for Yaz birth control. The new warnings advise consumers of the potential risk of serious blood clots, including deep vein thrombosis, from the use of Yaz. One study, published in a British medical journal last summer, indicated that women using [...]

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Posted in Yasmine, Yaz Litigation

April 8, 2010

Another Study Shows Doctors Responding To Profit Motives

We trust doctors. When they recommend a course of treatment or a surgery to us, we think their opinion is a disinterested one, one that is based solely on medical science and that is completely divorced from any financial stake they may have in the outcome. I’ve previously blogged about how this isn’t always the [...]

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Posted in Medical Malpractice