Tampa Bay Personal Injury Lawyer - defect

Toyota Recalls 4.26 Million Vehicles for Accelerator Defect

Joe Saunders — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:45:45 GMT

Toyota has recalled more than 4 million vehicles due to a defect with the car's accelerator. The defects involve accelerators that are jammed open by floor mats. The dangerous defects have led to auto deaths including the death of a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members. Since 2002, the sudden acceleration defects have claimed the lives of at least 19 motorists who've experienced such Toyota accelerator defects.

Toyota has received strong criticism for their inaction and failure to warn motorists of the problem. "They knew something was wrong way before that San Diego accident happened," said Rebecca Lindland, an auto industry analyst for consulting firm IHS Global Insight. "That was just the catalyst to get them to finally do something."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Joe Saunders

Defective Product Accountability for Foreign Manufacturers

Joe Saunders — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:44:10 GMT

The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2009 (S. 1606) is a good consumer protection bill that's been introduced in the US Senate by Senators Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jeff Sessions. Essentially, the bill aims to hold foreign companies accountable for defective products that injure US consumers.

Presently, foreign manufacturers who export defective products into the US that injure American are not held accountable because it's difficult to hold foreign companies accountable in US courts. The new legislative proposal would accomplish the following:

Requires manufacturers to have an “agent” located in at least one state where the company does business that would accept service of process for any civil and regulatory claims.
Companies would consent to state and federal jurisdiction, holding foreign manufacturers accountable to those judicial standards.

According to the American Association for Justice, "

"The legislation covers products regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), such as children’s toys; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including prescription drugs and medical devices; and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), like pesticides.

'Finally, foreign corporations will be on notice that their products must meet our standards and be subject to our legal system,' added Tarricone. 'Not only will American businesses be on a level-playing field with foreign corporations, but consumers will now have the added security that our civil justice system offers.'

Aside from the toxic drywall produced, this legislation would cover imported products seen in the news like poisonous toothpaste that contained diethylene glycol, children’s toys and jewelry coated with toxic levels of lead paint, and pet food that contained melamine, a compound used to make plastic."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Joe Saunders

Defective Drywall: More Than a Rotten Smell

Matthew Leeth — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:45:19 GMT

Many South Florida homeowners thought the damage done to their home was over when Hurricane Charlie left the area. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Hurricane Charlie made landfall in August 2004 in Punta Gorda, FL as a stage 4 hurricane. This was the most powerful hurricane to hit the sunshine state since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In the worse hit areas, homes were leveled and businesses destroyed. In other areas of the state, homes were severely damaged by wind and flooding. In most cases, homeowners rebuilt their homes or made the substantial repairs necessary to live in their home once again.

The large spike in home building and repair created a shortage of drywall. Drywall had to be purchased from distributers from around the globe in order to meet demand. Many manufacturers, some now bankrupt, utilized Knauf Plasterboard to meet their drywall needs. Knauf Plasterboard shipped the home builders drywall produced in China. With little or no regulation in the drywall industry, the drywall was installed into thousands of homes without any oversight.

It turns out the drywall used an unusually high level of organic material, which produced sulfur that became trapped inside the drywall. Florida's humidity caused the gases to escape the drywall, and has caused respiratory problems as well as corrosion of the electrical wiring and fixtures.

Fast forward nearly five years. According to the Florida Department of Health over 150 complaints have been received by homeowners complaining of a rotten egg smell (the common association with sulfur gas), corroded copper fixtures and the repeated failure of their home's air conditioning system. For those affected, the only cure is to completely remove the drywall from their home, replace all the wiring and fixtures affected, and install new, safe drywall.

For many of those affected by Hurricane Charlie, the nightmare is far from over. What's worse, Hurricane Katrina victims are expected to face similar problems in the coming years as the gases escape. Some homeowners who were not even directly affected by either hurricane - those who simply had their home built during the time of spiked demand - are likely affected as well. Nationwide it is estimated that upwards of 100,000 homes are affected. This leads to the question - Why was there no independent testing done prior to the installation?

Governor Crist is stepping in, asking the federal government to assist in the matter. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has introduced legislation to institute testing of all drywall imported between 2004 and 2007. The bill also bans the types of drywall responsible for this disaster. This may be effective in the identifying drywall with high toxicity imported between 2004 and 2007, but will it be enough to prevent another massive defect of another kind from occurring? Perhaps this bill should go one step farther and institute a cost-effective testing procedure for all imported drywall, in order to ensure an economic and hazardous disaster like this does not occur again.

Concrete, steel, and other structural components are tested in order to ensure buildings don't collapse. Pipes are tested to ensure they don't leak. Why isn't drywall tested, if only sporradically, to ensure minimal toxicity?

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Matthew Leeth

Hillsborough County Courts Facing Severe Budget Cuts

Brenda Fulmer — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:33:47 GMT

Hillsborough County Bar members received a plea this week from Chief Judge Manuel Menendez, Jr., urging lawyers to write Senate President Ken Pruitt and Speaker of the House Marco Rubio in an effort to stop legislative proposals that would slash the local court's budget by 10%. Such a cut would result in approximately one-third of staff jobs being eliminated from the Hillsborough County court system.

"The great majority of the judicial branch budget (which is less than 1% of the overall state budget) consists of salary dollars. Hence, cuts of this magnitude will mean reducing the number of employees by over 33%," Judge Menendez indicated.

Menendez indicated that the local courts have already frozen vacant positions, cut pay for some judges, and eliminated the funding for civil traffic hearing officers in an effort to deal with the budgetary shortfall. The approximate 60 jobs that may be lost would include court administrators, secretaries, and case managers. Hillsborough County Court Administrator Mike Bridenback indicated that $3 million to $4 million would have to be cut from the local court's $25 million budget in order to reach the 10% suggested budget cut. According to Bridenback,

"We're going to try to keep our criminal courts and our family courts going. Those are the courts that impact citizens more than anything else. To do that, the civil courts would be the ones primarily impacted because we'll be having to take judges away from those divisions."

These budget cuts are particularly devastating in light of the substantially increased volume of new lawsuit filings. The increase in filings is due, in part, to the mandate issued by the Florida Supreme Court that requiring former members of the Engle tobacco class action to file individual claims by January 10, 2008. In addition, all of the courts across the state are being severely impacted by mortgage loan fraud and the unprecedented number of new mortgage foreclosure actions that have been instituted.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Brenda Fulmer

Lamb Battle Rattles Recalled

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:40:58 GMT

Baby rattles in the shape of a lamb have been recalled because a piece may come off. The recalled rattles were manufactured by Infantino and may pose a choking hazard to babies and young children. No injuries have been reported from the rattle.

The recalled rattles are shaped like a lamb with an Infantino elliptical-shaped logo stamped on the front right foot of the lamb. Only rattles with date code 0907 printed on the back of the left ear of the lamb are included in the recall.
The production batch code is printed in a dial format with the year in the middle of a circle and an arrow pointing to the number on the circle that indicates the month. Rattles that don't have a date code aren't included in the recall.

The recalled rattles were sold in stores from September 2007 and February 2008. The rattles were made in China. The company is offering to replace the rattle with another item.

If you would like to learn more about product recalls, please visit InjuryBoard's Defective & Dangerous Products information page.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Heparin Finger Pointing Has Already Started

Brenda Fulmer — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:01:42 GMT

"A series of independent assessments, inlcuding one by the agency's own Science Board, have found that the F.D.A. is increasingly overwhelmed by its many responsibilties and is incapable of protecting the public from unsafe drugs, medical devices and food - particularly from China."

While the Food & Drug Administration continues its investigation into contaminated Heparin blood thinner products, the sparring between Baxter Healthcare and its supplier Scientific Protein Laboratories is underway. A March 6, 2008, New York Times article notes the latest findings of the FDA that Baxter's heparin products are contaminated and the investigation continues as to how the contamination occurred, whether it is isolated, why the contamination was not discovered by the product's manufacturer or supplier previously, and whether the nearly 800 reports of adverse reactions and 46 reported patient deaths are attributable to the confirmed contamination.

The article noted that Wayne Pines, a spokesman for Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories, wanted to reassure the public that nothing improper had occurred with regard to its procurement and processing of the raw materials utilized in the product, and noted "There is no evidence of counterfeiting or tampering or anything of that nature. No one really knows what happened here." The raw materials supplier also reiterated, again, that "it is premature to conclude that the heparin active pharmaceutical ingredient sourced from China and provided by S.P.L. to Baxter is responsible for these adverse events."

Meanwhile, Baxter and its spokesperson have also entered the fray with finger pointing at Scientific Protein and, perhaps, the FDA. Baxter noted that the contamination problem may not be as isolated as indicated previously, since tained lots of blood thinners came from Scientific Protein Laboratories' processing plants located in China and Wisconsin. According to media reports, Baxter began its investigation into possible contamination in the Fall of 2007 and claims that Baxter's findings "touched on the areas" as those noted in the FDA inspection. Scientific Protein Laboratories, however, questioned the nature of the probems that Baxter contends were noted in the Fall of 2007 and why those problems were not addressed prior to the recent FDA inspections.

The FDA is also under scrutiny with this latest in a long series of serious threats to public safety. The FDA has admitted culpability in failing to properly inspect a Chinese plant implicated in the heparin contamination controversy. There are also concerns about the ability of the FDA to protect consumers from adulterated products. A recent Government Accountability Office report entitled "Preliminary Findings Suggest Weaknesses in FDA's Program for Inspecting Foreign Drug Manufacturers" noted that over a six-year period the FDA was only able to inspect less than 10% of the approximately 700 medical device plants currently operating in China and providing drugs, devices and raw materials to manufacturers in the United States. For years, the FDA has been lamenting that a significant lack of funds and lack of enforcement authority has hampered its ability to properly ensure the safety of the nation's pharmaceutical and medical device products. This is particularly disconcerting as our court system and current administration have been aggressive in their efforts over the past few years to claim that state court actions are pre-empted and to essentially immunize drug and device manufacturers from liability for defective products based upon the obviously false assumption that the FDA has the ability to adequately protect consumers. Hopefully, this latest drug safety failure will refocus attention on this issue, just as the memories of Vioxx are fading, and stem the tide of legal efforts to permit defective drugs to remain on the market and the manufacturers to escape liability or require them to assume proper responsibility to ensure the safety of their products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Brenda Fulmer

Stryker Recalls Defective Hips

Joe Saunders — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:43:46 GMT

A week after the US FDA issued an 11 page warning letter to Stryker Co. about complaints the firm received from January of 2005 to mid 2007 involving the Trident PSL and Trident Hemispherical Acetabular Cups used in hip replacement surgery, Stryker has voluntarily but temporarily withdrawn the defective hip device from the market. The warning letter came after the FDA performed a six week inspection of its Mahwah, NJ plant. The complaints the company received involved poor fitting hip devices requiring a second hip surgery typically referred to as revision surgery.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Devices and Implants.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Joe Saunders

What You and Your Physician Don't Know Can Hurt You

Brenda Fulmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:33:56 GMT

"When you prescribe drugs, you want to make sure you're working with best data possible; you wouldn't buy stock if you only knew a third of the truth about ."

Over the past several years, drug manufacturers have lauded themselves for their decision to finally come clean, and publish all of their research (whether good or bad for them) in peer reviewed journals in order to ensure that the medical and scientific community can help patients make decisions based upon full and accurate information. A recent New England Journal of Medicine expose, however, indicates that it is still business as usual, and drug companies are still manipulating the science by burying adverse data.

The editors of the NEJM conducted a review of the data provided to the Food & Drug Administration to test its theory that pharmaceuticals companies were continuing to submit only the most favorable research for peer review and publication. This investigation by the journal found, for instance, 74 trials relating to 12 different anti-depressant drugs in the FDA files, but only 31% of those trials were submitted by the drug companies for publication. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the studies that showed favorable results were published. Of the few studies that showed negative results that were actually published, many were written to convey favorable outcomes belied by the actual study data. Drugs used to treat depression earn drug companies over $21 billion each year, and, for many pharmaceutical giants, serve as a bedrock for their companiess . However, these significant financial interests in marketing their products and gaining a competitive edge, does not justify the concealment of critical information or the manipulation of the medical literature into yet another marketing tool rather than the open and honest forum for debate on which so many physicians and patients rely.

On a related noted, Congress has now started an into the actions of Schering-Plough and Merck with regard to the popular cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia. Reports have emerged recently that the manufacturers of these drugs delayed publication of studies that questioned the effectiveness of these expensive medications.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Brenda Fulmer

Evidence Mounts on HRT Breast Cancer Dangers

Brenda Fulmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:56:58 GMT

Yet another study was released earlier this month showing that women who use combination hormone replacement therapy drugs face much greater risks of developing certain types of breast cancer. This latest study from researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center noted that women taking HRT drugs had a four-fold (400%) increased risk of developing lobular breast cancer and was the first study to focus on lobular cancers and include a review of pathology reports and tissue from tumors (http://seer.cancer.gov/data/). A statistically significant increased risk of ductal-lobular invasive cancers was also noted. This study is also particularly noteworthy in that it found that users of combination HRT drugs (containing estrogen and synthetic progestin) were at significantly increased risk after only three years of exposure, helping to dispel the notion that these drugs are safe if taken for less than 5 years.

Lobular breast cancers are relatively rare, representing only 15% of invasive breast cancers. Unfortunately, lobular cancers are quite virulent in that they are more difficult to detect through mammography and are more likely to be first diagnosed at later stages. Researchers have noted for quite some time, however, that lobular cancers appear to be more prevalent in women who used combination hormone replacement therapy drugs, such as Prempro and Provera taking in combination with Premarin or other estrogen products. This study included 1,044 women (ages 55 to 74) who are part of a Washington State breast cancer registry and who were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 2000 and 2004.

Although rates of CHT [combined estrogen and progestin hormone therapy] use have dropped considerably since the publication of the WHI trials, studies of the risks associated with CHT use remain of critical importance given the estimated 57 million hormone therapy prescriptions that are still filled in the United States each year. The results of this study provide further evidence that CHT use increases the risk of ILC (invasive lobular cancer], and they indicate that current use of CHT for as little as 3 years may increase risk of these tumors substantially. Continued research aimed at identifying the biological basis for the relationship between CHT use and lobular carcinoma risk is warranted.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Brenda Fulmer

Food Contamination is A Growing Public Safety Concern

Joe Saunders — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:41:08 GMT

The last year has seen a dizzying array of food contamination from all the food groups. We've had spoiled peanut butter, contaminated egg products, tainted beef, and spoiled canned foods, and contaminated vegetables in our supermarkets and grocery stores. The toxins have ranged from E.coli bacteria to salmonella that have killed at least 3 people, sickened thousands, and touched every state in the country. The number of outbreaks of foodborne illnesses nearly doubled in the time period of 1995-2000. The bad news is that health officials don't seem to have a handle on how to stem the tide or deal with the problem.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Defective and Dangerous Products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Joe Saunders