Blog

Teen drivers look to their parents for examples of safe driving to prevent motor vehicle accidents.  Sadly, a new survey shows that most parents aren’t living up to their responsibility to set a good example of safe driving.  According to the survey, most teen drivers see appalling examples of driving behavior by their parents.

The survey, conducted by Ford Motor Company, found that 82% of teen drivers regularly witness careless driving by their parents.  What’s even more dangerous is that many parents are probably not aware that their driving behavior is undesirable.  An overwhelming majority of the parents rated themselves as “good” drivers, but more than 50% of the children had found occasion to warn parents for bad driving, including speeding, distracted driving and other undesirable behaviors.  This seems to suggest that there’s a disconnect between parents’ perception of their own driving skills and reality.  This can be dangerous because young impressionable minds could be picking up unsafe driving practices from parents who are blissfully unaware of it.

This disconnect between what parents think and what they actually do is also seen in driver’s education programs for children.  Eighty two percent of the parents in the survey said that they were interested in having their child attend a safe driver education program.  However, only 20% of them actually got their child to enroll in a driver education program.

Motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death for American teenagers.  That is the terrifying reality, and unfortunately, it seems to California catastrophic injury lawyers like many parents are unaware that they have it in their hands to change this fact simply by setting a good example for their kids.

Consumer watchdog group Public Citizen has called for the Food and Drug Administration to ban weight-loss drugs Xenical and Lee because of their links to kidney stones, pancreatitis and liver damage.

This is not the first time that Public Citizen has called on the federal agency to ban these drugs.  In fact, it’s the group’s second petition in less than five years against the continued approval of this class of drugs.  Back in 2006, Public Citizen had petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban the drugs.  Then, Public Citizen had cited a preliminary study conducted in rats that suggested that the use of these medications causes precancerous lesions.  That petition had been rejected.

Xenical and Alli belong to a class of drugs known as Orlistat.  These are the only class of weight-loss drugs that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  According to Public Citizen, Orlistat has the potential to cause severe damage to multiple organs.  It’s not even as if these drugs are particularly effective in weight loss.  In fact, they have been shown to have meager benefits in obese patients.

California Pharmaceutical Injury AttorneyXenical and Alli have been extremely popular, and more than 50 million patients worldwide have been prescribed these drugs over the last decade. Xenical was introduced back in 1999, and was approved in 2007 by the Food and Drug Administration as an over-the-counter drug.  California pharmaceutical injury lawyers have been aware of studies that prove that these drugs only help people lose about 4 to 6 pounds more than they would under a diet and exercise program.

Some common side effects of these drugs include diarrhea and stool leakage.  However, the Food and Drug Administration has received more serious reports of side effects, including pancreatitis, kidney stones and liver disorders.  Overall, the Food and Drug Administration has received approximately 47 reports of acute pancreatitis, and 73 reports of kidney stones from the use of the medications.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises proper hand washing and hand hygiene procedures to prevent hospital infections.  Medical professionals, including doctors, nurses and others in close contact with the patient must wash their hands before attending to each new patient.  However, in many hospitals around the country, such hand hygiene procedures have become lax, increasing the rate of infections.

Preventing hospitalizations is not a matter of rocket science.  Dr. Peter Pronovost of John Hopkins University developed a checklist which when adhered to, can reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections.  The checklist is currently in place in hospitals across the country, and can help reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections as well as the rate of ICU-related fatalities.  The checklist includes simple steps that nurses and doctors should follow before attending to a patient.  This includes proper hand hygiene, and maintaining sterility of tubes and catheters.

Dr. Peter Pronovost also encourages hospitals to foster a medical safety culture that encourages patients and their families to ask questions of the doctor.  Often, Los Angeles medical malpractice attorneys notice that doctors are treated as demigods, and patients and their families, and even nurses and other healthcare professionals feel unable to question the doctor or challenge him.  That kind of culture, where a physician is placed on a pedestal and considered to be above reproach or question, simply isn’t healthy in a hospital setting.

Besides hygiene and handwashing, infections can spread to many other parts of a doctor’s clothing, including ties, jewelry and long fingernails.  In 2004, a study conducted in New York, found that physician’s ties were contaminated with at least one dangerous microorganism.  In the UK, the national health system has in place a dress code for healthcare professionals that prohibits lab coats, ties, and jewelry.  Doctors and nurses are also prohibited from maintaining long fingernails.

The Motorcycle Safety Foundation this week released a statement drawing attention to the real risks to motorcyclists from distracted drivers.  According to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, it’s not just motorists who are at risk from distracted driving, but also, and probably to a larger extent, motorcyclists.

Los Angeles catastrophic injury lawyers often see that in any collision between a motorcycle and a car, it is the motorcyclist who suffers the most severe injuries.  Even a moderate impact accident can be enough to leave motorcyclists severely injured.  A non-helmeted motorcyclist is also at a higher risk of suffering skull fractures and brain injuries.  Part of the reason why motorcycle accident fatalities have been increasing steadily over the past decade has been that motorcyclists must now contend with motorists who are distracted while driving.

Last year, a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that a motorist had a higher risk of being involved in an accident when he was texting while driving.  Many of those collisions include motorcycles.

The Motorcycle Safety Foundation is currently in the process of conducting a naturalistic study, the first such study in the world, to identify the causes of motorcycle accident.  The last major study into motorcycle accidents was back in the ’70s, and the study resulted in the publication of the Hurt Report in 1980.  However, that was not an extensive naturalistic study, although it did provide useful information on the causes of accidents, some of which helped define motorcycle safety initiatives, like promotion of helmet use.

This naturalistic study will provide far more detailed information about the causes of motorcycle accidents, especially the role of distracted drivers in these, and hopefully will help in policy planning to prevent accidents in the future.

BIKLAW has been retained in a medical malpractice/product liability action against a physician, hospital, and product manufacturer Covidien in connection with the wrongful death of a patient following gastric bypass surgery.

A new study indicates that one of the reasons why elderly motorists are more likely to be involved in pedestrian accidents is because they have a narrower field of vision that reduce the chances of spotting a pedestrian stepping onto the curb or sidewalk.  In fact, according to the researchers, it’s probably to make up for this narrow field of vision that elderly drivers drive as slowly as they do.

According to the researchers, their study of drivers aged above 65 used simulator programs to determine how a narrow field of vision affects a person’s driving ability.  The researchers found that drivers above the age of 65 took a longer time to spot pedestrians on the street.  They also took a much longer time to respond by braking when they spotted a pedestrian.  It’s probably to deal with these visual problems that elderly motorists drive slower than younger drivers.  According to the same researchers, elderly drivers tend to drive at least 20% slower than younger drivers.

The results of the study have been published in the Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention.  California car accident attorneys have known that elderly drivers suffer from a number of physical challenges affecting their driving abilities.  These challenges are not as simple as simply blurring vision and diminishing hearing.  Even though an elderly motorist may see things clearly, he may have trouble interpreting the signals from his brain.  This is the reason why researchers recommend modifying highway signs and traffic signs to make them more visible to elderly motorists who have a narrower field of vision.  Lane markers can also be used to provide strong visual cues to elderly motorists about possible risks ahead.

California has a booming population of seniors, and these are expected to constitute a large percentage of the driving population in the next couple of decades.  Highway safety and transportation agencies in California need to take the safety needs of this burgeoning population of senior motorists into account while redesigning highways and safety aids.

BIKLAW has been retained by Medchoice Financial, LLC in connection with a fraudulent scheme designed to conceal actual loan profits.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office has found a spike in the number of elder abuse cases reported from California and around the country.  The Government Accountability Office report also expresses concern over the fact that adult protective services funding around the country has stayed stagnant.

Jerry Brown, the director of education, workforce and income security at the accountability office testified at a special hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, that state agencies around the country were seeing an increase in the number of elder abuse cases that were reported.  What is even more concerning to California elder abuse lawyers, is that there has been an increase in the number of complex elder abuse cases involving multiple forms of abuse that have come to light.

Another point of concern is that funding for adult protective services has not kept pace with this increase in elder abuse.  According to the Government Accountability Office, this spike in elder abuse cases will overwhelm state adult protective services agencies unless action is taken to increase funding for these bodies.

Some of the challenges facing elder abuse attorneys in California and federal authorities in charge of elder care, is that reduced funding for adult protective services in many states has meant the hiring of unqualified inspectors.  Out of the 39 responding states in the survey, most have reported that funding for adult protective services in their state has either remained the same or declined over the last five years.

That has severely affected the quality of staff training, as well as the number of inspectors qualified to conduct inspections of nursing care facilities.  What we need is a centralized system for tracking elders as they move from home care to institutionalized care and vice versa, to help monitor abuse, and prevent these incidences.  However, different states have different definitions of what constitutes abuse, and this makes establishing a single central network, difficult.

BIKLAW has been retained by the founder of Myspace.com in a multi-million dollar breach of contract action.

The Food and Drug Administration has announced a new Innovation Pathway program to make the process of approval of medical technologies quicker.

This week, the agency announced the new program to expedite the approval of ground breaking new medical technologies. Under the Innovation Pathway program, technologies that have the potential to revolutionize medical care will be quickly identified and the approval process will be expedited.

According to the agency, the new program will reduce the amount of time it takes to approve medical technology by half. However, agency officials have been quick to assure the public and California pharmaceutical injury lawyers that all safety considerations will still be met before the approval process is complete.

There are several conditions that medical technology companies must meet before their medical products can be approved under the Innovation Pathway process. For one, the product must be a pioneering technology that has the potential to revolutionize patient and medical care, not just enhance it. Once a product is identified, the company will receive the Innovation Pathway memorandum from the agency’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. The memorandum will contain a timeline for the development of the device. After that, a case manager will be assigned to identify the important scientific issues associated with the medical technology.

The first product to be considered under the program is the world’s first robotic upper extremity prosthetic. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has submitted a device that is designed to restore natural-like arm, hands and finger function to patients who suffer from spinal cord injury. The device has been in development by the Pentagon, at the cost of more than $100 million.