- Joe Saunders | March 31, 2006 9:30 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsA consultant for Wichita Kansas public schools is urging school officials to use prudence when deploying taser stun guns on students. It's just as important to inform the parents of tased students as well as the local community of such use. In Hillsborough County Florida, letters are sent home to school parents when a taser is deployed, even by accident.
- Joe Saunders | March 28, 2006 9:46 AM |
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MiscellaneousThe Florida Legislature seems bent on acquiescing to Governor Bush's agenda to protect large corporations at the expense of the family and the average consumer. An unfortunate example of this is the current legislation seeking to ban Joint and Several Liabilty. Joint & Several Liability provides a Common Sense approach by which victims' medical bills are paid when two or more offenders cause...
- Joe Saunders | March 28, 2006 9:36 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsAs the death toll from Taser use continues to mount across the country, Amnesty International has renewed its call to halt the use of the controversial stun gun. According to the watchdog group, 61 people died after being tasered in the last year. In spite of this, Taser use has increased since 2001. According to the GAO, police officers used the stun gun 70,000 times last year alone.
- Joe Saunders | March 21, 2006 6:20 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeAn expert panel commissioned by Guidant Corporation to assess its handling of problems with cardiac medical devices cited the company for failure to properly assess patient safety. The commission noted that Guidant's decisions were guided by statistical projections provided by engineers rather than medical data provided by doctors. The group urged Guidant to create an outside panel of...
- Joe Saunders | March 20, 2006 9:04 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsNorthfield Laboratories has come under heavy criticism for the unorthodox manner in which it is testing its new blood substitute PolyHeme. However, it's not the substitute itself that has caused the uproar. It's the fact that the 31 hospitals around the country participating in the study have failed to inform the patients of the substitute's use. The subjects of the study, badly hemorrhaging...
- Joe Saunders | March 18, 2006 11:26 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsFlorida police officers would be required to take four hours of training before using the Taser stun gun under HB 303 which was unanimously approved by the Florida House Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee. Presently, no training is required. The training requirement bill surfaced after many people have been seriously injured or killed after being hit by the Taser. Republican Dick...
- Joe Saunders | March 15, 2006 6:45 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeIn a hastily called briefing for Congressional staffers, authorities at the James A. Haley VA Center in Tampa announced that an unsterilized cranial implant was placed into a patient last month. The mistake was nearly duplicated a few weeks later at the same hospital. The hosptial officials waited nearly two weeks before notifying anyone of the error! Of course, the usual political...
- Joe Saunders | March 14, 2006 10:40 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsDoctors who had been heavily courted by Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx, are now some of the drug's most outspoken foes. In the ongoing Vioxx trial, doctors have come forward and testified that if they had been told of the potential risks the drug posed, they would never have prescribed the drug to their patients. One of the doctors, John Braun, took Vioxx for two years to treat neck pain,...
- Joe Saunders | March 14, 2006 10:04 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeAccording to a report published in the NY Times, Guidant Corporation has issued a warning to doctors about possible battery defects in two of its implantable defibrillator devices. The devices in question, the Contak Renewal 3 RF and Renewal 4 RF cardiac defibrillators, have not been implanted in any patients thus far. Guidant said the FDA may classify the warning as a product recall.
- Joe Saunders | March 14, 2006 9:58 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsArmed with a $650,000 grant from the Department of Justice, two University of South Carolina research professors will undertake a study of the controversial Taser stun gun. The study will focus on the weapon's safety as well as its ability to reduce injuries to police officers and suspects. The study comes at a time of growing public concern about the safety of Tasers and their potential for...
- Joe Saunders | March 13, 2006 6:33 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) has introduced legislation that would toughen penalties for companies and their executives who sold products that cause injury or death. Presently, there are only civil penalties for such behavior. In announcing the legislation, Specter singled out Guidant Corp. and their defective defibrillators as an example of actions that would be...
- Joe Saunders | March 10, 2006 9:40 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeA Guidant Corporationconsultant told the medical device company that it had an ethical obligation to inform doctors of defects in its defibrillator device. Dr. Richard N. Fogoros, also told company executives that their decision to withhold such data, while statistically defensible, was questionable. In one of two lengthy memos to Guidant executives, Fogoros wrote that the company violated a...
- Joe Saunders | March 10, 2006 6:45 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsA California judge has dismissed Taser International's Motion to Dismiss in a lawsuit arising from a 2004 death of a Monterey CA man who had been tasered. Taser International, Inc., asked the district court to dismiss the claims of the Rosa family, contending that (1) Michael Rosa's death was not reasonably foreseeable, (2) its product is not inherently dangerous, and (3) it had no duty to warn...
- Joe Saunders | March 09, 2006 7:12 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsAn FDA panel has recommended that the risky and controversial MS drug Tysabri be returned to the market. The panel argued that the decision to use the drug should be made by the doctor and the patient, in spite of evidence that the drug causes a deadly brain disease. If the FDA accepts the panel's recommendation, it would be only the second time a drug was returned to the market after having...
- Joe Saunders | March 08, 2006 7:17 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsYou've all seen the ads for the popular sleep aid Ambien. Yet, behind this popularity is a little known fact: the sudden rise in Ambien related impaired driver arrests. Some of those arrested state that they have no recollection of driving a vehicle prior to the arrest. In some state toxicology laboratories Ambien makes the top 10 list of drugs found in impaired drivers. And as a more...
- Joe Saunders | March 08, 2006 6:57 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsEvery day I read a new Taser story. Each day the story seems to get more outrageous. Today, the story's about a Harris County (TX) sheriff's deputy using a taser on an elderly man in a wheelchair! The deputy has been placed on administrative leave for improper use of the stun gun weapon. The 73 year old man was shot twice in the groin area by the deputy. At the time of the incident, 12...
- Joe Saunders | March 07, 2006 8:53 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsAccording to Harold C. Sox, MD, scientific research should be directed at truth and objectivity rather than promoting the marketing initiatives of pharmaceutical companies. In an article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the doctor decries the use of fake scientific data to bolster sales of pharmaceutical drugs or medical devices. Sox further states that scientists have a duty not...
- Joe Saunders | March 07, 2006 8:48 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsA Tennessee man remains in a coma after being tasered while in custody for public intoxication. The FBI has begun an investigation into why the man lapsed into a coma after being tasered by a jail deputy. According to police, an M26 Taser was fired at the man after he became combative.
- Joe Saunders | March 06, 2006 3:51 PM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsRandall Udelman, fellow Injury Board blogger in Phoenix, has a nice post on the military's stance on tasers. The military recognizes the stun gun weapon is just too dangerous for any training exercise.
- Joe Saunders | March 06, 2006 7:15 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsThe FDA has reported that 2/3 of the drugs approved by the agency remain untested and unproven. When new drugs are approved for public use, they are supposed to report the results of clinical trials to the FDA. One drug approved in 1955 has still not complied with these tests. These studies are important in that they are intended to reveal if the drugs are working as intended and whether they...
- Joe Saunders | March 06, 2006 7:04 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsOutrageous but true: in the midst of mounting public concern over its dangerous stun gun, Taser International has developed and plans to market a 12 gauge shotgun so that its users can fire from a greater distance! That's just brilliant! In the face of a public outcry over safety concerns and more than 100 deaths in the wake of Taser use, the company wants consumers to be able to fire the...
- Joe Saunders | March 05, 2006 9:32 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsThe chemical manufacturers use to make Teflon, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, have been asked by the EPA to reduce and eventually eliminate its use due to its carcinogenic properties. Teflon is used in a wide range of consumer goods, including nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, and food packaging. Currently, the EPA hasn't established safe levels of PFOA exposure. After reviewing an EPA...
- Joe Saunders | March 05, 2006 9:24 AM |
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Automobile AccidentsIf there weren't enough health risks associated with being overweight, along comes another one-maybe one you wouldn't have thought about. If you're male and obese, you're at a significantly greater risk to die as a result of a car crash according to a Milwaukee based investigation. The study cites various factors leading to this increased risk: obesity reduces the body's ability to recover...
- Joe Saunders | March 05, 2006 9:20 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsIn July 2005 it was the fentanyl patch used for chronic pain. The following November it was the Ortho Evra birth control patch after studies had shown women using the patch were exposed to 60% more estrogen than non-users. Now, the FDA is going to probe the entire drug patch industry for safety concerns. There are inherent issues with the patch such as increased exposure to heat. "Most...
- Joe Saunders | March 04, 2006 11:11 AM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsCheck out fellow Injury Board blogger Kerry Jardine's post on pharmacy mistakes.When you get a prescription filled at your drug store, make sure the pharmacist has filled it correctly. The consequences of taking the wrong prescription can be dire or fatal depending upon the severity of the mistake. Unfortunately, such mistakes are more common than you'd like to think.
- Joe Saunders | March 04, 2006 7:03 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsIn what is thought to be the first Taser lawsuit against a cop, a fedral civil jury found in favor of the plaintiff and awarded him $100,000 in punitive damages. The case stemmed from a June 2003 traffic incident during which Dontray Chaney was pulled out of his car and forcibly thrown to the ground for having an obscured license plate. Originally, he was charged with resisting arrest without...
- Joe Saunders | March 03, 2006 7:03 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsThe CDC has linked a drug used to treat lead poisoning with cardiac arrest in children. Hospira, Inc, the maker of the drug Endrate, had no comment after the CDC released its results. Mary Jean Brown, chief of the CDC's Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, said hospital pharmacies should consider whether stocking Endrate is necessary, given its risks and the availability of other...
- Joe Saunders | March 03, 2006 6:52 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsIn an article published in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel parents of a 6 year old boy will sue the police department that fired a taser at the young boy after a confrontation in the school office. First of all, how can you call this a confrontation? How is it possible the police or anyone else for that matter, have to resort to a Taser gun to control a six year old? He's six years old and a...
- Joe Saunders | March 02, 2006 6:21 AM |
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MiscellaneousAccording to a Canadian study to be published March 30th in the New England Journal of Medicine, users of the antibiotic Tequin were 17 times more likely to receive emergency room treatment for hyperglycemia or high blood sugar. If untreated, the condition can be fatal. The antibiotic has been used to treat pneumonia, bronchitis, and gonorrhea.
- Joe Saunders | March 02, 2006 5:49 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsThere's a well-balanced, thoughtful editorial in the Palm Beach Post this morning that is worth a read on tasers. The upcoming legislative debate over taser use comes in light of the tragic and unnecessary death of a Ft. Pierce man. Samuel Hair of Fort Pierce was suffering from mental illness not criminal behavior at the time of his death. He was also wearing a pacemaker. Hair had called...
- Joe Saunders | March 01, 2006 1:19 PM |
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FDA & Prescription DrugsNew Zealand's Medical Research Institute has found that Celebrex users are nearly twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as those taking other arthritis drugs, commonly known as Cox-2 inhibitors. Last August, Pfizer, the manufacturer of Celebrex, put a "black box" warning on the drug yet Celebrex stayed on the market. The black box warning is the most severe of the labels placed on...
- Joe Saunders | March 01, 2006 10:47 AM |
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Medical MalpracticeWhen Guidant Corp. came under fire last year for not revealing to doctors it's problems with its medical device, it remained positive in its public announcements. But newly released documents show that, inside Indianapolis-based Guidant, executives were struggling to contain a mounting crisis.The records illustrate how a series of miscalculations by Guidant, like its misreading of doctors'...
- Joe Saunders | March 01, 2006 10:45 AM |
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Defective & Dangerous ProductsA second Fort Pierce police officer and an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the death of Samuel F. Hair Jr. Hair, 48, was given a Taser shock by police the night of Feb. 21 in the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute emergency room and died at the hospital Friday after being taken off life...