Monthly Archives: May 2010

May 31, 2010

Medical Malpractice Roundup

This week a jury found transplant doctors not liable for a cancer that a transplant recipient most likely developed through a transplanted kidney. The case raises interesting public policy questions. The doctors and hospital are the only ones able to screen the organs and donors for disease, which might suggest liability should lie with them. [...]

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Posted in Medical Malpractice

May 29, 2010

Consumer Product Safety Commission Warns Of Memorial Day Weekend Dangers To ATV Riders

Last year, over Memorial Day Weekend, twenty-seven people died in All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) accidents, including two riders under the age of sixteen. This year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is issuing a warning to ATV riders to be mindful of the dangers of off-roading. It is easy to understand why Memorial Day weekend [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Car Accident, Car Crash, Products Liability

May 28, 2010

Do We Tolerate Too Many Traffic Deaths?

That’s the title of an excellent online symposium running in The New York Times’ Room For Debate page. And the answer of all the esteemed thinkers assembled by The Times is: yes, the carnage on America’s roadways – the 37,000 fatalities a year caused by car accidents – is excessive and reducible. The different writers’ [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Car Accident, Car Crash

May 24, 2010

Arrogance Kills Patients (Why You’re Safer On A Plane Than Under Anesthesia)

The physicist Eugene Wigner, wondering why math works and why it is able to tell us so much about the world, once famously marveled about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences.” Today, researchers studying medical malpractice are marveling about the unreasonable effectiveness of following simple checklists for medical tasks. I’ve previously blogged [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Medical Malpractice

May 23, 2010

What Do Tort Reformers Believe In? (Hint: It’s Not The Free Market)

We’re all familiar with the arguments that trial lawyers are the bane of this country’s existence. We hear that the cost of lawsuits and regulation challenges businesses’ ability to compete and create jobs. What we need, we are told, are caps on damages – limitations on the amount that patients can recover for pain-and-suffering in [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Tort Reform

May 22, 2010

Study Says Newer Airbags May Be Inferior To Older Model

A new study by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety, to be published this year in the peer-reviewed journal The Annals of Epidemiology, suggests that the latest model of airbags, available in some cars since 2004 and mandated since 2008, may be reducing crash survivability for belted drivers. The researchers found that belted drivers had [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Car Accident, Car Crash

May 16, 2010

May 17-23 Is National Dog Bite Prevention Week

This week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. Why should you care? Each year, about 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs, one in five of those dog bite victims requires hospitalization and approximately 30,000 a year require some sort of reconstructive surgery. Children between the ages of five and nine are among the most [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Dog Bites

May 15, 2010

Are You To Blame For The High Cost Of Health Care?

If you listen to Republican legislators tell it, medical malpractice lawyers are to blame for the high cost of health care. Frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits drive up doctors’ medical malpractice premiums and force them to practice “defensive medicine” – ordering more tests and examinations than are actually necessary to treat the patient. All of this [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Medical Malpractice, Pharmaceutical Litigation

May 12, 2010

Why You Should Pay Attention To Drug And Product Warning Labels

Warning labels on drugs and other products are often mocked for the extreme caution they recommend and for their obviousness. In fact, there’s a whole host of websites dedicated to mocking warning labels, including the website “Dumb Warning Labels.” (My favorite: “Warning: Product will be hot after heating.”) One warning that I’ve heard mocked quite [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Pharmaceutical Litigation, Products Liability

May 8, 2010

Bikers Are Getting Older, And More Banged Up

The Boston Globe had this interesting article about a hidden phenomenon: the average of motorcyclists is creeping up (the average rider is now over 40!) and, to add insult to injury, older riders are getting hurt worse in accidents. Older motorcyclists are especially vulnerable to brain injuries, as the blood vessels on the top of [...]

Posted by Alan H. Crede | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted in Motorcycle Accidents