Fourth Quarter 2005 Personal Injury Law News & Recall Articles

Star-Telegram [Fort Worth, TX], "Recent court cases raise questions about trucking safety"

         In what one attorney says is an indication of a “disturbing pattern of dangerous activity” by the nation’s trucking industry, a Fort Worth waste-disposal company became the second local trucking firm this month to be hit with a multimillion-dollar payout after one of its vehicles was involved in a fatal crash. More...

Associated Press, "Accidental Acetaminophen Poisonings Rise"

          Think popping extra pain pills can't hurt? Think again: Accidental poisonings from the nation's most popular pain reliever seem to be rising, making acetaminophen the leading cause of acute liver failure.
          Use it correctly and acetaminophen, best known by the Tylenol brand, lives up to its reputation as one of the safest painkillers. It's taken by some 100 million people a year, and liver damage occurs in only a small fraction of users.
          But it's damage that can kill or require a liver transplant, damage that frustrated liver specialists insist should be avoidable. More...

Bloomberg News, "Guidant Gets FDA Warning, Sanctions on Devices Plant"

          Guidant Corp., the object of a bidding war, was barred by U.S. regulators from exporting heart- rhythm devices from its principal plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, because of product flaws. The shares had their biggest decline in more than seven weeks.
          The action resulted from a September inspection report as the Food and Drug Administration probed defibrillator failures linked to at least seven deaths that forced the recall of 109,000 devices. After the recall, Johnson & Johnson cut $4 billion from its $25.4 billion buyout offer, first made a year ago. Boston Scientific Corp. on Dec. 5 bid $25 billion for Indianapolis-based Guidant.
          "We continue to move forward on our due diligence with the goal of reaching a definitive agreement with Guidant," said Boston Scientific spokesman Paul Donovan in a telephone interview from Italy today after Guidant disclosed the FDA action. "I don't think we're going to have anything more to say right now."
          For more information on the Guidant defibrillator failures, please see our stand-alone Guidant defibrillator website www.guidant-recall-lawsuit.com.

Reuters, "Guidant saw some deaths from heart device: report"

          Medical device maker Guidant Corp. projected that some patients might die as result of short circuits in a company heart device, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing company records filed in connection with a lawsuit.
          Guidant did not publicize the flaw because it appeared to have viewed the overall failure rate as acceptable, according to the documents filed Thursday in a Texas state court in connection with a lawsuit involving Guidant's Prizm 2 DR defibrillator.
          A company report also showed that by the middle of 2002 Guidant determined that the consequences of the defibrillator's electrical failure, although rare, could be "life threatening," the newspaper said. Still, Guidant continued to sell the potentially flawed devices and did not notify doctors about the defect until last spring, when the problem was about to reach the public, the Times said.

The Galveston County Daily News, "Ford hit with historic $16.6M Explorer verdict"

          A 405th State District Court jury hit the Ford Motor Co. with a $16.6 million judgment in the case of a rollover crash that killed a boy, 13. More...

Associated Press, "Merck Hit by Flood of Vioxx Lawsuits"

          Eight weeks after a Texas jury handed drug maker Merck & Co. a $253 million verdict in its first Vioxx product liability trial, the number of Vioxx lawsuits is rising like floodwater. More...

Chicago Tribune, "How safe is tuna? Federal regulators and the tuna industry fail to warn consumers about the true health hazards of an American favorite"

          In the fall of 1970, a chemistry professor in upstate New York reached into his pantry, grabbed a can of tuna and, on a hunch, tested it for mercury. What he found stunned him: levels of the toxic metal far above U.S. safety limits. Embarrassed regulators immediately did their own testing, which confirmed the professor's results.
          Tainted tuna soon captured national headlines and became a cultural reference point, from the butt of Johnny Carson jokes to the lyrics of a Marvin Gaye hit: "Fish full of mercury/Oh mercy, mercy me." Government officials characterized the high mercury levels as an anomaly. After recalling 12 million cans, they pronounced tuna safe to eat again.
          But three decades later, canned tuna still contains mercury --sometimes in amounts as high as those found by the professor. A Chicago Tribune investigation shows the tuna industry has failed to adequately warn consumers about the risks of eating canned tuna, while federal regulators have been reluctant to include the fish in their mercury advisories -- at times amid heavy lobbying by industry. More....

Associated Press, "New England Journal: Merck Concealed Data"

          Vioxx maker Merck & Co. concealed heart attacks suffered by three patients during a clinical study of the now-withdrawn painkiller in a report on the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2000, the journal wrote in an editorial released Thursday. More...

Associated Press, "Cardiologist Criticizes Merck Behavior"

          A prominent cardiologist testifying against Merck & Co. accused the drugmaker Saturday of engaging in scientific misconduct, suppressing clinical evidence and stifling medical discourse as it promoted the painkiller [Vioxx].
          Dr. Eric Topol, chairman of the cardiovascular medicine department of the Cleveland Clinic, called certain aspects of Merck's behavior "repulsive" and "appalling" during his three-hour videotaped deposition. More...

Detroit Free Press, "Group calls for Ford to unseal safety tests"

          A Washington auto-safety group launched a new effort Thursday to unseal safety tests from Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo division, saying the tests highlight flaws in a new standard for vehicle roof strength backed by federal regulators and automakers.
          While the contents of the documents are well known, safety advocates say making them publicly available would force the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rethink its new rule for how well car and truck roofs should protect people in rollovers. More...

San Francisco Chronicle, "Doctor: Vioxx Was Factor in Man's Death"

          A pathologist testifying at the first federal trial over Merck & Co.'s former blockbuster drug Vioxx said he believed the pain killer helped cause a blood clot that killed a Florida man. More...

Associated Press, "Lawyer Tells 3rd Vioxx Trial That a Month's Use Was Fatal"

          A lawyer representing a widow who contends that her husband's death was caused by Vioxx, the arthritis pain reliever made by Merck, argued Tuesday in a federal product liability suit here that taking the medicine for a month was enough to cause the heart attack that killed her husband. More...

Automotive News, "Senators rebuke NHTSA on tougher roofs proposal"

          Two key senators are warning federal regulators that their effort to use tougher roof-strength rules to block rollover lawsuits against automakers may not be legal. More...

Kansas City Star, "Flavoring company close to settling; Popcorn plant lawsuits winding down"

          More than four years after the original lawsuit was filed, the case involving workers at a Jasper, Mo., popcorn plant is finally nearing conclusion. More...

Detroit News, "[Ford] Explorer roof called too weak"

         Many of Ford Motor Co.'s best-selling Explorer SUVs from the 1999 to 2001 model years likely do not meet a crucial safety requirement intended to protect passengers in rollover crashes, a safety engineering firm claimed in a petition filed with the federal government. More...

Reuters Health, "Viagra may be useful for serious lung disease"

          Treatment with Viagra (sildenafil) can improve exercise capacity and functional ability in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a serious disease involving high pressure in the blood vessels that enter the lungs, new research suggests. More...

St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota), "Family blames birth control patch in girl's death; La Crosse couple suing Johnson & Johnson"

          Parents of a 14-year-old Wisconsin girl who died last year are suing the makers of a popular birth control patch for failing to warn people sooner about serious side effects. More...

Associated Press, "Vioxx Users to Challenge Safety Claims"

          Whether the once-popular painkiller Vioxx can be lethal if taken for just a few weeks will be the crux of the first federal trial concerning the drug's safety, plaintiff's lawyers said Wednesday. More...

Forbes, "Antidepressant Use for Kids Doubled Before FDA Warnings"

          Even as concerns about teen suicide and antidepressant use surfaced during the last decade, prescriptions for the mood-altering drugs increased dramatically as therapy sessions declined, new research shows. More...

The Associated Press, "Drug maker issues warning about birth-control patch"

          The makers of a popular birth-control patch warned millions of women Thursday that the patch exposes them to significantly higher doses of hormones and may put them at greater risk for blood clots and other serious side effects than previously disclosed. More...

St. Petersburg Times, "Small SUVs Can Be Big Problem"

         The two-door Ford Explorer that rolled over on the Howard Frankland Bridge and sank in Tampa Bay is one of the most dangerous vehicles on the road, according to insurance industry data. More...

St. Petersburg Times, "Ford explorer Sport Crashes Into River"

         Mujo Jakupovic and his wife, Amira, had been driving east from St. Petersburg on the Howard Frankland about 1 p.m. with their sons, 13-year-old Emrah and 7-year-old Amar. About 200 yards from the end of the bridge, the left rear tire of their green, 1998 Ford Explorer Sport blew out. More...

Associated Press, "Two state trials down, first federal trial next up for Merck"

          With Merck & Co. now 1-and-1 in state lawsuits over its Vioxx painkiller, the world's No. 5 drug maker may face higher stakes later this month in the first federal trial of charges that it knowingly rushed a potentially lethal drug to market to pocket billions in profits. More...

Associated Press, "Jury Finds for Merck in Second Vioxx Case"

          Merck & Co. won a major victory in the battle over its Vioxx painkiller Thursday when a New Jersey state jury found that the drugmaker properly warned consumers about the risks of the medication. The finding means Merck won't be held liable for the 2001 heart attack suffered by a man taking Vioxx. More...

CBS Morning News, "Increasing questions regarding the safety of using the birth control patch"

SUSAN McGINNIS, anchor:
Safety concerns this morning about the birth control patch Ortho Evra. An estimated four million women have used this patch as an alternative to birth control pills. Well, now some say it's made them very ill. Cynthia Bowers reports.

CYNTHIA BOWERS reporting:
The Ortho Evra patch came onto the market four years ago amid a glitzy ad campaign featuring sexy models and touting convenience. It was a pitch that appealed to millions of American women, including Philomena Ugochukwu. But just 12 days after she began wearing the patch, the Texas mother suffered a debilitating stroke and, two years later, remains almost completely paralyzed. More...

South China Morning Post, "China Eastern Airlines crash families may wait years for result in lawsuit"

          Family members of 21 people killed in last year's China Eastern Airlines plane crash in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, will probably have to wait at least two years for a result in their civil compensation suit lodged in a US state court.
          Flight MU5210 to Shanghai burst into flames less than a minute after takeoff from Baotou on November 21 last year and plunged into a frozen lake, claiming the lives of all 47 passengers and six crew on board, along with two people on the ground.
          The US-based law firm representing the families, Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein, LLP, lodged the suit in California last week against mainland carrier China Eastern Airlines, US-based engine producer General Electric and Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier. In Beijing yesterday, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Robert Nelson, said the crash might have been caused by the plane's
controversial design, the engine's inability to withstand ice and the carrier's failure to request ice removal before takeoff.
          "The CRJ200 hard wing is unforgiving and may have combined with negligence by China Eastern pilots to cause the crash," Mr Nelson said. "We have hired investigation companies. But the problem is they haven't had any access to the plane, which is frustrating."
          For more information about this case, read the case profile on our companion website Global Aviation.com.

The New York Times, "Safety Decoder: How to Make Sense of the Crash Ratings"

          The Ford Escape is "a genius on anything from dirt to gravel to granite," at least according to a recent ad in Maxim magazine. Not only does it have "brains for rocks," whatever that means, it has a computer that checks for "wheel slippage 200 times a second." More...

The New York Times, "Repeated Defect in Heart Devices Exposes a History of Problems"

          Two months after Joshua Oukrop's death, the Guidant Corporation, the country's second-biggest maker of heart defibrillators, acknowledged that it had not told doctors for three years that one model had short-circuited in about two dozen cases, including the one involving him.
          Guidant, which has said it did nothing wrong, has characterized the student's death as a tragic event. But it turns out that the same type of electrical defect that destroyed Mr. Oukrop's defibrillator also caused another heart device from Guidant to malfunction. More...

Associated Press, "Ford Explorer Sport Accident"

         Amanda Read Fomicheve was injured Monday afternoon when a driver lost control of her Ford Explorer Sport vehicle just before 1 p.m. and slammed into the car in front of her. More...

Associated Press, "Chrysler announces recalls affecting about 583,000 vehicles" ["Park-to-Reverse" transmission problems]

          DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group said Friday that it would voluntarily recall about 300,000 vehicles with a potential defect that could prevent the driver from placing the transmission in "park." More...

Associated Press, "Company Settles Suit with 19 Popcorn Plant Workers"

            A butter flavoring manufacturer ordered to pay more than $53 million in damages to employees of a southwest Missouri popcorn plant who blamed the product for lung disease has settled with 19 other plaintiffs. More...