Personal Injury & Wrongful Death

Last week, Stanford University announced that it will severely restrict industry financing of doctors’ continuing education at its medical school. The school’s new policy stems from concern about the influence drug companies may have on medical education.

Most doctors in the United States must take annual refresher courses that drug makers have long paid for. While the industry says its money is intended solely to keep doctors up to date, critics charge that companies agree to support only classes that promote their products.

Stanford will no longer let drug and device companies specify which courses they wish to finance. Instead, companies will be asked to contribute only to a general pool of money that can be used for any class, even ones that never mention a company’s products.

Four more patients have died of pancreatitis after taking the diabetes prescription medication Byetta. The deaths were announced by Eli Lilly & Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. the companies manufacturing the drug. Several weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced two two additional deaths.

While no definite relationship between Byetta and the additional deaths has been proved, according to the companies, they may have to add tougher warnings to prescribing instructions.

Byetta, which has been available in the U.S. since June 2005, is Amylin’s leading product, with global sales of $194.7 million. The companies previously agreed to warn of the risk of pancreatitis in October, after 30 milder cases were reported.

The Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to revise standards for over-the-counter cough and cold medications for children. The FDA said it will change the criteria that have allowed the products to remain on drugstore shelves . This could result in removal of the products from the market.

The FDA action is in response to increasing concerns that the remedies are ineffective and could be unsafe. Specifically, the action is in response to a petition filed in March 2007 by a group of pediatricians asking the FDA to restrict the use of the products, citing a lack of evidence that they work and mounting evidence they can cause hallucinations, seizures, trouble breathing, heart problems and other complications, including occasionally deaths.

The petition pointed out that the remedies had been allowed to stay on the market because they were approved at time when it was not considered appropriate to test medications directly in children. Instead, studies in adults were extrapolated to children, a practice now considered inadequate, the petition said.

Para representar a las familias de las personas que perdieron la vida en el accidente aereo Spanair JK5022, nuestro bufete juridico esta trabajando con abogados especializados en casos de Litigacion Internacional de choques aereos, ya estan invesigando esta tragedia. Si perdimos familiars en este accidente, estos serian los abogados elegidos para representar a nuestras familias.

Para una consulta gratis, favor de enviar su correo electronico precionando aqui (haga clic aqui).

**********************************************************************************************************

In the July 28 issue of Health Services Research, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported that a recently completed study indicates that employers pay out $1.47 billion each year to cover costs for surgical patients incurred from preventable medical errors. The report analyzed data from a nationwide sample of more than 161,00 adult patients who underwent surgery in 2001 and 2002 and were insured by plans provided through their places of employment.

The study focused on 14 preventable errors which included acute respiratory failure, technical problems, infections, pulmonary and vascular problems, metabolic problems, wound problems, and nursing events.

The results revealed that respiratory failure and infections were the most costly. Insurers paid $28,218 and $19,480 extra for surgical patients who experienced these problems as opposed to similar patients who did not. Other costs included $12,196 for nursing events, $11,797 for metabolic events, $7,838 for pulmonary and vascular events and $1,426 for wound problems.

It was reported by the news media on Friday, August 15, 2008 that an innocent motorist was killed on 8/14 when inadvertently caught up in a high speed police chase in Clayton County, Georgia. While the media reports are sketchy, it appears that the fleeing suspect was speeding and driving in an erratic manner. The police began to chase the driver and during the chase, the suspect struck an innocent motorist who was on a motorcycle. As a result, the motorcyclist was killed.
We do not know enough about the facts of this case to assess whether the police chase violated Clayton County’s policies and procedures for high speed pursuits. Nonetheless, Clayton County has a well known track record of having been involved in numerous police chases where serious injuries and deaths have occurred. Our law firm currently has 3 wrongful death suits pending against Clayton County and one serious brain injury case all arising out of high speed police chases. In each of these 4 cases, we have alleged that the pursuing officers recklessly disregarded proper police procedure in their decision to initiate the chase and/or their failure to terminate it after it became clear that the risk of injury or death to innocent third parties caused by the chase outweighed the need to apprehend the suspect.
In this case, it appears that the fleeing suspect was wanted for traffic violations. We have indicated before that the dangers associated with high speed pursuits are so great that unless it is absolutely necessary for the protection of the public to immediately apprehend the suspect, in many cases, termination of the pursuit is the best way to protect innocent third parties from the dangers presented by a chase. In this case, it is clear that the Clayton County officers involved did not terminate their pursuit with the result that yet another innocent third party motorist was killed. As in our other cases, this third party was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and was doing nothing wrong and yet paid the price for this apprehension with his life. The question again arises. Is the death penalty to the innocent worth the price of catching a suspect who is wanted for mere traffic violations? We have said it before, we say it again: We think not.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a $328,135 jury award to a widow and her son based on her husband’s lost chance of recovery resulting from a doctor’s negligence in not treating his stomach cancer. This ruling based upon the theory of “loss of chance” damages is being applauded by plaintiffs’lawyers.

The court held that the family could recover even though the victim had less than a 50-percent chance of survival when he first sought treatment. The “loss of chance” doctrine eases the burden for plaintiffs. Under traditional malpractice rules, doctors may only be held liable if their negligence was a substantial factor in the injury or death. Under the “loss of chance” doctrine, a doctor can be liable if his failure to diagnose reduced the patient’s chance of survival.

The jury in the case found that the deceased was suffering from stage 2 adenocarcinoma at the time of his first visit to his doctor, who examined him and prescribed over-the-counter medication. A gastroenterologist who testified as an expert for the defense told the jury that stage 2 stomach cancer has a survival rate of 25 to 40 percent.

To identify the worst insurance companies for consumers, researchers at the American Association for Justice (AAJ) conducted a comprehensive investigation of thousands of

court documents, SEC and FBI records, state insurance department investigations and complaints, news accounts from across the country, and the testimony and depositions

of former insurance agents and adjusters. The AAJ final list includes companies across a range of different insurance fields, including homeowners and auto insurers, health insurers, life insurers, and disability insurers.

As Atlanta injury lawyers, we see many accident victims undergo knee and hip replacement surgery every year. Many of these victims are injured as a result of automobile and truck accidents and many result from work related injuries. The fact is nearly one million hips and knees were replaced last year in the United States alone. This represents approximately one-half (½) of the world’s total, making the U.S. the largest provider and user of implants.

Although the Food and Drug Administration is charged with monitoring devices such as artificial joints, the monitoring process is ineffective for several reasons. One reason is the FDA is overwhelmed by the vast number of products that it monitors. Another reason is that there is no system in place by which doctors can report problems with medical devices such as artificial joints. The sad truth is that the United States has no national database to track patients who receive artificial joints. Other nations, including Australia, Britain, Norway and Sweden have national databases which allow the monitoring of these medical devices. In these countries where “joint registries” exist, regulators are able to use data collected by the registry to force manufacturers of artificial joints to justify why poorly performing hips or knees should remain available and, in some cases have provided the data necessary for the complete withdrawal of products from the market.

For many years there have been efforts made to set up an open national registry in the United States; however, these efforts have failed. There are many reasons for this which include 1) medical providers not willing to complete paperwork, 2) fear that plaintiff’s lawyers would use such a database to either find cases or prosecute products liability cases and 3) perhaps because of suspected lucrative financial relationships between orthopaedic surgeons and the manufacturer of these products.

We have previously written about the federal government’s new policy restricting Medicare payments to hospitals for the extra care required to treat patients harmed by certain preventable infections and medical errors. Now the federal government is expanding the program in an attempt to to provide hospitals with a financial incentive to improve patient care.

Under the expanded policy, Medicare will not make payments to hospitals for care needed after patients suffer from certain surgical site infections (specifically for total knee replacement, laparascopic gastric bypass and gastroeneterostomoy, and ligation and stripping of varicose veins); deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism (formation/movement of a blood clot); and extreme blood sugar derangement.

Medicare considered adding a number of other hospital acquired conditions to the nonpayment list: staphylococcus aureus septicemia (bloodstream infection); Clostridium difficile associated disease (a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea and more serious intestinal conditions such as colitis); Legionnaires’ disease (a type of pneumonia caused by a specific bacterium); Iatrogenic pneumothorax (collapse of the lung) delirium; and ventilator-associated pneumonia. However, none of these hospital acquired conditions were included in the final nonpayment rules just issued by the agency to be implemented on October 1, 2009.