Over at the Burke & Eisner website our Cerebral Palsy Lawyers have created some new content on Cerebral Palsy Symptoms and in the process we noticed that a significant number of our cases involve Fetal Distress. There are some other causes such as Group b strep infections and other infections as well.
Fetal Distress is basically when the labor and delivery process causes the baby to have difficulty getting oxygen. So if there is something wrong with the umbilical cord and that problem limits blood flow to the baby while the contractions are happening, then you might see evidence in the medical records that the baby is having trouble. This evidence is what is used to pursue a medical malpractice case.
It is true that these cases are still being pursued. From over at the Burke & Eisner blog (Pharmaceutical Section) a post about the fentanyl pain patch recall in February 2008. Fentanyl Poisoning and Fentanyl Patches:
Authorities are investigating a boating crash on Lake Winnipesaukee that left one woman dead and two others injured during the weekend.
The driver of the boat, Erica Blizzard, 34, of Laconia, is the president of the New Hampshire Recreational Boaters Association — which recently opposed boater speed limits on the lake.
The Marine Patrol bureau said the crash killed Stephanie Beaudoin, 34, of Meredith.
She was a passenger in a 37-foot powerboat boat that struck the rocky, northwestern shore of Diamond Island in Gilford around 2:30 Sunday morning. It sustained significant damage.
Here is a powerpoint presentation/video that we created to show what some of the basic steps are in moving toward a successful auto accident settlement in New Hampshire
Emily Rae Rice bled to death in the Denver City Jail after being released from the Denver Health Medical Center. She had been in a car accident as a result of driving under the influence. U.S. District Court records show that Denver Health was cited for failure to diagnose and treat her injuries before releasing her to the jail. She had suffered a lacerated spleen and liver.
Rice had been taken to Denver Health by ambulance and a graduate nurse and paramedic student had reported to the primary care nurse and physician that she was complaining of shoulder and abdominal pain. However, there was no follow-up examination of the abdomen before she was transferred to the jail.
Investigation by authorities found that Denver Health failed to provide Rice adequate medical screening; failed to ensure that Rice received adequate assessment and treatment to stabilize her medical condition; and failed to ensure that her medical condition was stabilized before she was transferred to the jail.
Such deficiencies violate the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, designed to guard against hospitals dumping patients.
The family has settled with Denver Health for 4 million dollars but the settlement does not include others named in the suit – the Denver Sheriff’s Department and several deputies.
The family also has been critical of the sheriff’s employees at the jail. They say they were negligent in getting Rice medical care despite her pleas for help and the warnings of fellow inmates who were watching her suffer.
An internal-affairs investigation at the jail determined that two deputies had failed to make required visits to check on Rice. The jail has denied that the failure to check on Rice played a role in her death.
A Canadian study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that patients who were given aprontin during heart surgery were more likely to die from complications than those patients given two other less expensive generic clotting drugs.
Aprontin is marketed under the trade name Trasylol and is manufactured by Bayer, Inc. Bayer said that 80 lawsuits have been filed so far over the use of Trasylol. Bayer has said that it still waiting for details from the Canadian study and is deciding what to do.
Experts express the opinion that this study will herald the death knoll for Trasylol and probably keep the drug off the market because previous studies have also linked Trasylol to elevated risk of death after heart surgery.
The Canadian study, paid for by the government, included more than 2,300 patients who were at high risk of bleeding or had multiple health problems. They were chosen randomly to receive Trasylol or two other anti-bleeding drugs during heart surgery. The study was stopped early last October when preliminary results showed a higher rate of death in the Trasylol group. Bayer temporarily pulled the drug off the market two weeks later.
“There was no way we could ethically enroll (more patients) in the trial because we had our answer,” said lead researcher Dean A. Fergusson, a transfusion medicine expert at the Ottawa Health Research Institute. “I think the results are quite definitive, certainly for high-risk cardiac surgery, and it’s going to be very tough to justify its use in lower-risk surgery.”
An analysis of the data showed Trasylol increased chances of death by 54 percent, compared to two much-cheaper drugs. Six percent of the Trasylol patients died within 30 days of surgery, compared with 4 percent who got either Amicar or Cyklokapron, despite a slightly lower percentage of the Trasylol patients suffering from massive bleeding or needing transfusions.
The researchers found those who died in the Trasylol group had a much higher proportion of heart complications after surgery, including heart attacks.
Traffic Congestion (as annoying as it is) costs everyone about $430 a year.
Car Crashes— $1051.
So says a story in the Charleston Daily Mail. Wednesday March 5, 2008
Study: Traffic crashes cost American motorists $164 billion a year
by The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Traffic crashes cost American motorists more than $160 billion a year while inflicting a staggering per-person toll on small cities such as Little Rock, Ark., Columbia, S.C., and Pensacola, Fla., according to a AAA research report.
The study, to be released today, found that traffic crashes have a much more damaging impact on society than the bumper-to-bumper congestion that riles commuters in many metropolitan areas.
Maryland-based Cambridge Systematics Inc., which conducted the research for the automobile association, found that crashes cost U.S. motorists $164.2 billion a year, or about $1,051 per person. That’s more than double the $67.6 billion in annual costs from congestion, or about $430 per person.
We are very please to annouce that we have launched the AngioSarcoma Law Blog. This blog deals with the connection between Angiosarcoma and Vinyl Chloride.
Hospital patients who suffer cardiac arrest at night are more likely to die than patients whose hearts stop on the day shift, a new study shows.The study, published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is the latest to show that patient care and survival appears to be profoundly affected by hospital timing and staffing issues. Other studies have shown that patients who receive hospital care on weekends do worse than patients treated during the regular workweek.
Heart surgery patients were more likely to die if given an antibleeding drug, Trasylol, two new studies have found.The manufacturer, Bayer, stopped selling the drug after a Canadian study was halted because of deaths. The research reignites a controversy over Trasylol, which was on the market for 14 years.
The studies are being published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The first looked at about 10,000 patients who had bypasses at Duke University Medical Center from 1996 through 2005. It found that 6.4 percent of patients who were given Trasylol died within 30 days of the surgery, a rate nearly 2.5 times higher than patients who got another drug or who received no treatment for bleeding.
The second study, financed by Bayer, looked at about 78,000 patients nationwide from 2003 to 2006. After adjusting for other factors, the researchers found the risk of death was 64 percent higher in the Trasylol group than in those taking a comparison drug.
Posted by Dave Austin 
Posted by Dave Austin 
Posted by Dave Austin 
Jim
Dave