All news posts from August 01, 2002 to August 31, 2002

The debate over the safety of mobile phones continued this week when Australian scientists revealed the results of a new study that suggests the devices do not cause brain tumors. The Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science examined 1,600 mice, determining that wireless phones have "no effect on frequency of tumor

A new report released by one of the nation's leading environmental interest groups reveals that arsenic levels in pressure-treated wood are just as high in old lumber than in newly made timber. The Environmental Working Group used volunteers in 45 states to conduct "wipe tests" on thousands of wood samples across the

A new study conducted by researchers with McGill University in Montreal reveals that third generation oral contraceptives do not increase a user's risk of suffering acute myocardial infarction. The report, which appears in today's issue of the journal Human Reproduction, indicates that second generation pills pose a m

Italy's Health Ministry announced this week that it will re-introduce the diet drug sibutramine, sold in Europe as Reductil and the United States as Meridia, to the market with specific limitations. In March 2002 the agency suspended the sale of products containing sibutramine after fifty "adverse events" were associa

One week after the Justice Department asked a judge to reverse a ruling that banned commercials for the psychiatric drug Paxil, a stay was issued granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more time to prepare a brief defending the anti-depressant medication. Last week, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer o

Arthur Anderson's parent company, Anderson Worldwide, agreed to pay $60 million Tuesday to settle legal suits stemming from the Enron Corporation scandal. According to the settlement's stipulations, the Swiss-based company will pay $40 million to plaintiffs involved in several class-action lawsuits and $20 million to

A new study published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention indicates that users of first-generation mobile phones known as Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) analogue units face a greater chance of developing a brain tumor than those who have never used the models. As part of the study, researchers examined 1,617 p

A new study conducted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reveals that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease in women. Researchers involved in the inquiry analyzed several studies on the topic, concluding that the Women's Health Initiative's (WHI) recent announce

The Pentagon is sending a group of medical experts to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina to determine if a link exists between four recent murders and the anti-malarial medication Lariam. Sgt. Rigoberto Nieves, Master Sgt. William Wright, Sgt. Cedric Griffin and Sgt. Brandon Floyd murdered their wives (Nieves

The family of a man who died from injuries he sustained when a streetlight detached from its pole and struck him in the head settled a product liability lawsuit recently for $4.1 million. On March 20, 2000 Sabu Sims was walking on a public avenue in San Dimas, California when a 38-pound light fixture fell 20 feet onto

A report in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reveals that a popular herbal supplement may interfere with the effectiveness and metabolism of a chemotherapy medication. Widespread use of St. John's Wort, or hypericum perforatum, began several years ago after reports indicated that the

A Florida jury recently awarded $2 million to the family of a woman who died due to improper treatment at a nursing home. Sadie McIntosh, 80, was admitted to Pompano Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in 1999 to recover from hip replacement surgery. During her stay, a nursing aide accidentally cut into her surgical in

An antiabortion group is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately ban the pregnancy medication Mifeprex, alleging the abortion pill causes adverse events. As part of the petition, Concerned Women for America, the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christia

A man who developed a speech impairment and severe numbness after a medical procedure at an Illinois hospital recently settled a malpractice lawsuit for $19.4 million. Paul Wyatt developed a subdural hematoma after being mugged and beaten in a San Antonio, Texas hotel parking lot. During surgery, days later in Chicag

A Federal judge ordered pharmaceutical maker GlaxoSmithKline to immediately pull all commercials for its psychiatric drug Paxil that claim the medication is "non-habit forming." The ruling was made after U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer determined the advertisements were misleading, saying they "created inaccurate

Continental Tire North America announced Monday that it is recalling nearly 600,000 size P275/60R17 Contitrac AW and General Grabber AW tires because of problems involving tread separation. The tires were manufactured between March 1999 and October 2000 and have Department of Transportation date codes that range from

Attorneys representing Metabolife International are denying allegations that the supplement maker lied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the negative effects of ephedra. On Thursday, the FDA announced that it had asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Metabolife w

A California jury awarded $2.045 million last week to an African-American motorist who was shot in the back by a Los Angeles police officer. Out-of-uniform officers Ronald Orosco and Gorgonio Medina pulled over Charles Beatty, 68, for a traffic violation on June 14, 2000. After receiving a citation, Beatty became arg

Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) ordered a voluntary recall of kava kava last week, several months after the herbal supplement was linked to the death of a 51-year-old woman in Melbourne. As part of the announcement, the TGA also asked consumers to dispose of any products containing the supplement.

Paper and packaging corporation MeadWestvaco announced last week that hundreds of asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits have been filed against the company. More than 500 suits, filed by 6,000 plaintiffs, allege that an asbestos-containing friction paper--made by Mead Corp. decades before its January merger with W

According to a new study published recently in the journal Neurology , cholesterol-lowering medications may cause a rare nerve disorder. The report, authored by a Danish physician and a University of Southern Denmark scientist, indicates that statin use may cause polyneuropathy, a noninflammatory degenerative disease

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday that it has asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into allegations that a leading herbal supplement seller lied about the safety of Ephedra. According to FDA Deputy Commissioner Lester Crawford, the administration has been attemptin

The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week that it will reevaluate the safety of the controversial hormone replacement medication Prempro. The reassessment, to be conducted by the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, will determine if the drug's risks (Prempro has been linked to stroke

A Georgia jury awarded $13.4 million this week to the family of a woman murdered at an apartment complex in Norcross. On March 15, 1999, 20-year-old Danielle Jennings was strangled to death in her apartment by Calvin Oliver, a maintenance man working at the TGM Ashley Lakes Inc. facility. Jennings' family sued TGM as

Victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks filed a $1 trillion lawsuit Thursday against several organizations linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. The plaintiffs, known as Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism, consist of family members of those killed during the attacks as well as firefighters and other

A new report in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that tobacco companies pressured pharmaceutical makers throughout the 1980s and 1990s into reducing marketing campaigns for anti-smoking products such as nicotine gum and skin patches. Based on documents recorded during the 1998 n

A Massachusetts judge recently ordered the owners of a tugboat to pay $1.1 million for damages their vessel caused to a tugboat-barge in the Cape Cod Canal. In August 1999, the tugboat Mary Turecamo , owned by Moran Towing Corp., and the barge Florida , owned by Petroleum Transport Corporation, were tied together t

The chief executive officer of Bayer AG told the German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche in a recent interview that the company would be willing to settle individual lawsuits involving the now-banned cholesterol drug Baycol. CEO Werner Wenning told the magazine that Bayer was ready to settle in individual cases but

A Rhode Island jury found a car-leasing company liable last week in the case of a Pawtucket woman who suffered severe injuries in an automobile accident. Judith Oliveira was stopped at a street light in her Subaru on the night of July 23, 1998, when Steven Lombardi, 20, slammed his Acura into the back of her car. Oli

An Indiana jury awarded $1.5 million this week to a Bloomington couple whose son died due to an emergency room physician's negligence. In August 1996, Shakir Mustafa and Nawal Nasrallah took their 13-year-old son, Bilal, to Bloomington Hospital's emergency room to have him treated for severe headaches. The attending

The Massachusetts State Board of Registration in Medicine has suspended a physician who left a patient on the operating room table while he visited a local bank. On July 10, Dr. David C. Arndt, an orthopedic surgeon and 1992 graduate of Harvard Medical School, was performing back surgery on a patient at Mount Auburn H

On July 8, 2002, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was notified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) of a cluster of cases of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection. CDPHE has identified 20 cases of E. coli O157 infection, with onset dates between June 13 and 30, and i

A new report released yesterday by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) reveals that a nationwide lack of nurses may have contributed to 25 percent of recorded deaths and injuries in hospitals since 1996. In its study, the Commission examined 1,609 reports of patient deaths and inj

A Texas jury recently awarded $1.2 million to a Houston veterinarian who claimed he was wrongly fired after making complaints about animal cruelty to city officials. Sam Levingston, 72, filed suit against the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care alleging he was terminated from his veterinarian position with the city i

Governor Kenny Guinn of Nevada signed a bill into law yesterday that will place a cap on future pain-and-suffering awards in medical malpractice cases. The law's enactment was a relief for doctors and insurance carriers who have suffered from enormous malpractice verdicts over the past year. The state's largest physi

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently reprimanded Abbott Laboratories for failing to properly report to the agency several deaths linked to its diet drug Meridia. In a letter made public yesterday, the FDA informed Abbott that it improperly reported seven deaths linked to Meridia and failed to inform th

A Texas medical center announced Tuesday that it has recalled body parts sent to dozens of research establishments nationwide after officials discovered that many may carry the AIDS virus. A spokesperson for the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston told health administrators yesterday that a former e

The two remaining defendants involved in an MTBE underground water contamination lawsuit agreed to settle with the plaintiff Monday for more than $28 million. The agreement ends a three year battle waged by the South Tahoe Public Utility District, which sued 16 corporations in 1998 after MTBE contamination forced the

Tobacco giants were breathing a sigh of relief yesterday after the California Supreme Court upheld a law that granted cigarette makers a 10-year period of immunity from personal injury lawsuits. In 1987, the California legislature determined that the dangers of smoking were common knowledge to consumers and passed a l

A Michigan jury recently awarded $500,000 to a five-year-old boy whose doctor performed surgery on a wrong organ. In October 1997, Alexander Totte underwent an operation at Sparrow Hospital & Health Systems in Lansing to cure a urinary problem caused by myelomeningoceles spina bifida, a defect that prevents closure of

Victims of Kansas City pharmacist Robert Courtney, who pled guilty to twenty Federal counts of drug tampering in February, say two pharmaceutical companies knew Courtney was diluting cancer medications for several years before his arrest. In a new motion filed Monday, patient attorneys accuse Eli Lilly Co. and Bristol

Four men who claim they were discriminated against when they were asked to leave an American Airlines jet and strip-searched in front of other passengers have filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the airline. Three female American Airlines employees searched Waesam Hamdan, Ehab Abdelaziz, Eyhab Matari and Osama Zeidan

A Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. stockholder has filed a lawsuit against the homemaker, alleging she damaged the reputation of her company by becoming involved in the recent ImClone Systems insider trading scandal. Conrad Hahn, who filed the lawsuit, seeks unspecified damages for potential loss of revenue becaus

A jury recently awarded $11 million to an Illinois woman who suffered massive injuries during a high-speed police chase. In 1997, Salonica Prado was a passenger in Tracy Parham's vehicle when police officers from the city of Evanston attempted to pull Parham over, believing she was wanted on an arrest warrant. A chas

A Portland, Oregon firefighter who was the victim of racial discrimination while employed with the city's Fire Bureau settled a civil rights lawsuit Wednesday for $100,000. Rick Fizer, an African-American, alleged that while assigned to Engine companies 21 and 24 he was exposed to racial slurs and humiliating pornogra

A jury recently awarded $517,000 to the family of an 11-year-old boy who died during an altercation at a California elementary school. Radonhie Jackson died of a heart attack shortly after being punched in the chest during a fight at Springs Elementary School in San Bernardino. The decedent's brothers, who claimed th

The family of a teenager who drowned after passing out on the beach in Puget Sound settled a wrongful-death lawsuit against the state of Washington last week for $185,000. According to the complaint, 17-year-old Jonathan George Edwards was drinking alcohol purchased by an underage friend from a state-operated liquor s

Health officials in Baltimore revealed yesterday that two children received overdoses of chemotherapy while being treated at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The patients, both unidentified, received twice the correct dosage of the cancer medication Carboplatin, which may have resulted in one of the children, a 2-year

The chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services yesterday to determine if the dietary supplement ephedra, used by athletes to speed their metabolism, poses an "imminent hazard" to consumers and if so, to immediately ban the sale of the substance. Senator Richa

A new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that the antipsychotic drug Risperdal may be beneficial to children with autism. Researchers with the Yale Child Study Center tested the medication on 101 autistic children diagnosed with aggressive behavior and severe temper tantrums. By the