Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
NuvaRing Coming Under Fire for Dangerous Effects - Friday, April 4, 2008
Approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2001, NuvaRing, a low-estrogen contraceptive device has now been linked to blood clots in women. NuvaRing is a flexible, soft, two-inch vaginal ring that is worn for three weeks and then removed for one week. It combines ethinyl etradiol (the estrogen hormone component) and etonogestrel (the progestin hormone component).Back in December 2007, the safety of the NuvaRing was discussed as The American Society of Hematology found that there were there cases of women who developed complications including blood clots while using NuvaRing.
Side Effects of Nuva Ring:
Blood clots
Strokes
Heart Attacks
Myocardial infarction
Pulmonary embolism
Death
If you or a loved one has suffered adverse effects after using the NuvaRing contraceptive device, please contact an experienced medical device attorney in your area today.
Allegations of Fraud Surrounding Blackstone Medical, Inc. - Tuesday, April 1, 2008
In April 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a recall of Blackstone Medical’s ICON Modular Fixation System due to a problem with its construction. This spinal implant was a collection of components that allowed surgeons to assemble a construct including screws, connectors, and rods. It was implanted in and near the patient’s spine and was intended to immobilize and stabilize spinal segments at the site of spinal surgery.However, according to the recall, the construct could loosen in the early postoperative period requiring surgery to remove it. To date, approximately 4% of the 484 surgical procedures to implant the system have had loose constructs. Fortunately, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported as of yet.
In recent years, several orthotics companies have been investigated for participating in illegal kickbacks schemes. With these schemes, there have been allegations of civil conspiracy with underlying medical malpractice, specifically, violation of informed consent due to doctors and surgeons lying about test results to induce patients to consent to unnecessary surgeries.
Blackstone is now coming under fire for suspicion of illegal kickbacks schemes in which surgeons are providing patients false reports to induce them into agreeing to spinal surgery where the Blackstone devices are implanted. Both surgeons and Blackstone Medical, Inc. have been alleged to benefit financially each time one of the devices is implanted under fraudulent terms.
If you or a loved one has been involved in a spine surgery medical malpractice case, there may be more to your situation than meets the eye. What was once thought to be just a defective medical device, may now be at the center of a kickbacks scheme to profit from unnecessary surgery and unnecessary implantation of spinal devices.
Air Bag Deployment (or Lack of) Still Causing Problems - Monday, March 31, 2008
For as long as air bags have been in automobiles, they have saved lives, but, unfortunately, they have taken lives, also. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), from 1987 to 2005, it is estimated that air bags saved approximately 20,000 lives, but needless air bag deployments have seriously injured or killed thousands more.Recently, a Florida woman crashed her 2003 Ford Windstar minivan into the passenger side of another car while going 50 mph and her air bag did not deploy. In 2000, a Fort Lauderdale woman died from chest injuries when her air bag did deploy when she drove into a barrier going only 10 mph.
These and similar cases have led to numerous complaints of air bag malfunction since they came into regular use in the mid-1990's. Car safety experts claim that in cases such as these, the air bags performed exactly as designed, whether they deployed or not. Orlando lawyer, Rich Newsome, handles auto product liability and personal injury cases and was the attorney for the family of Mayling Semidey (the woman who died when her airbag deployed at 10mph). In 2003, Newsome won the $3.3 million lawsuit against Ford on behalf of Semidey's son.
Newsome contends that the airbag is Semidey's case was defectively designed to deploy in low-speed crashes when it was not needed. Air bags are designed to prevent catastrophic injuries caused when the driver or passenger's head would strike the steering wheel, dashboard, windshield or other equipment at a high rate of speed. To prevent such serious injuries, air bags must deploy within 1/20th of a second and with enough force to cushion the blow; the force of an air bag deployment is like an explosion. In courtrooms, lawyers have deployed air bags to give the juries an idea of their force.
In response to the high number of deaths and injuries due to air bag problems, in the late 1990's, car manufacturers provided car owners the ability to turn off passenger side air bags. They also raised the deceleration speed that triggers deployment and lowered the force at which they come out. Ford safety spokesman Dan Jarvis has explained that forward quick-stopping pressure, not driving speed, is the determining factor in air bag deployment.
According to an NHTSA employee, air bag malfunctions are rare. In some cases, air bags may fail to deploy due to the car being in an earlier crash and not repaired properly. The NHTSA does not compile statistics about air bag failures or complaints; however, it does keep records of complaints and investigations searchable by specific make and model through its Office of Defects Investigations (ODI) website. If the NHTSA receives enough complaints about a particular make and model, it will investigate. If it finds a problem, it can force the automobile manufacturer to issue a recall.
While air bag-related injuries and deaths are dropping, they still happen. There are still many problems with air bags that continue to kill people and cause serious injuries including deployment at low speeds, untimely deployment, deployment with too much force, and failure to deploy.
Contact our Personal Injury Lawyers and Attorneys today to find an experienced motor vehicle accident lawyer near you.
