Access To Justice

California Medicaid patients may be taking dangerous amounts of acetaminophen, according to a new UC Davis study. Acetaminophen is safe at four grams a day or less but it is prescribed to some patients in much greater quantities, according to the study published in Annals of Pharmacotherapy.

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An Allegheny County judge approved a $900,000 settlement for the heirs of an elderly patient with dementia who froze to death atop the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Montefiore after she wandered through a door to the roof that was supposed to be alarmed and locked.

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Anesthesia given intravenously to patients could potentially lead to infection with hepatitis B and hepatitis C, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC researchers traced an outbreak of the disease to an anesthesiologist who did not follow procedure and used a single-use vial of the anesthesia drug propofol to dose multiple patients.
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HIV and hepatitis are among the serious diseases that more than 1,800 veterans may have been exposed to after having dental work done at a Missouri VA hospital, reports CNN.com.

Hospital officials at the John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis told CNN the exposures resulted when dental technicians ignored safety protocols by handwashing tools before putting them in cleaning machines. Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-MO) is calling the failure “unacceptable” and demanding an investigation into the exposures.

There seems to be a lot of this going around. A recent study we blogged about here recently sounded the alarm about lax infection control procedures at some of the nation’s outpatient surgical centers.

If you or someone you love has been the victim of medical malpractice, you may have rights.

In an effort to blunt medical malpractice costs, New York State will test a pilot program in which hospitals will quickly acknowledge medical errors and offer to compensate patients who have been harmed, reports The Albany-Times Union.  The program is expected to cut millions of dollars in legal costs associated with medical malpractice.

Settlements will be handled by specially trained judges; both hospitals and victims are free to choose a jury trial at any point in the process, according to the newspaper. Five hospitals will participate in the three-year demonstration project.  The hospitals will also focus on improving the process of patient safety as a part of the test.

Approximately 98,000 people die every year as a result of preventable medical errors, according to a study by the Institute of Medicine.

File this under things that make you go “eew”: Lax infection-control procedures at the nation’s outpatient surgical centers–where procedures from colonoscopy to plastic surgery take place–may be putting millions of patients at risk for illness, according to a newly released federal study.

Bloomberg Business News reports that the study found infection-control lapses such as a lack of hand washing or improper handling of blood glucose equipment were common among a sample of 68 ambulatory care centers located in Maryland, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.  Other common lapses included using single-dose medication vials to treat more than one patient and failing to follow best practices for reprocessing equipment.

Of those centers surveyed, 67 percent had at least one lapse in infection-control and 18 percent had lapses in three out of five standards. However, all the facilities in the study fixed their errors, according to Bloomberg. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

There are more than 5,000 outpatient surgical centers in the US certified by Medicare, according to the study. Medicare requires the centers to operate infection-control programs based on national guidelines, according to Bloomberg.

A Milwaukee mother and her young son, who suffered brain injury during his delivery, were awarded $23.3 million in damages by a jury in a recent medical malpractice case, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The jury ruled against Dr. Donald Baccus and the Injury Patients and Families Compensation Fund but cleared the hospital, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, of any negligence in the case, according to the Journal Sentinel.  The award will compensate Kishia Lee and her son Laron Birmingham for medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of income, and personal loss.

Birmingham, who has cerebral palsy, was delivered by a medical resident using forceps after a prolonged labor by his mother, according to news report. The plaintiffs contended that the forceps damaged the child’s brain during the process and that Baccus should have instead done a Cesarean delivery once Lee began having problems.

The Journal Sentinel reports that Baccus will appeal the verdict.

If you believe your child’s birth injury was caused by medical negligence, we may be able to help.

News developments that we’ll be watching at Sokolove Law:

The influential Military Officers Association of America has endorsed legislation that will permit service members to sue the federal government for medical malpractice. The Marine Corps Times reports that the bill, known as the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act, would “allow members of the Armed Forces to sue the United States for damages for certain injuries caused by improper medical care, and for other purposes.”  If enacted, the bill would overturn a 60-year-old Supreme Court decision that blocks service members from taking legal action in cases of medical malpractice by military health providers. The bill is currently in the House of Representatives awaiting a floor vote, according to the report.

Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline will settle more than 700 suits filed by plaintiffs who claim they were injured after taking its Avandia diabetes drug, according to Bloomberg News. The suits alleged that use of Avandia led to strokes and heart attacks in those taking it. Bloomberg says the company will pay $60 million to settle the suits, which are among 4,000 filed over the drug. In February, two reports that were highly critical of cardiac risks associated with the drug were released, one by the Food and Drug Administration and the other by the US Senate.

Waiting to receive your Social Security disability benefits? Don’t hold your breath. The Associated Press reports that many people are waiting two years or more to receive their first payment after filing a claim. The reason? The already backlogged system is now being clogged by a flood of new applications sparked by the sluggish economy. The AP writes that around 3.3 million people will apply for benefits this year, up by 300,000 from 2009. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) pays benefits to workers and certain family members if the worker was “insured,” meaning that they worked long enough and in jobs that paid Social Security taxes. A worker must also have a medical condition that meets Social Security’s definition of disability.

Don’t swallow the gel: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  is warning consumers not to drink Benadryl Extra Strength Itch Stopping Gel after receiving reports that some people were swallowing the OTC medication instead of applying it to skin as the label directs. The confusion is understandable, since Johnson & Johnson’s Benadryl is also sold in other forms that are meant to be taken orally. However, consumers who swallow the gel can ingest dangerously large amounts of the active ingredient diphenhydramine, which can have serious side effects such as unconsciousness, hallucinations, and confusion. The FDA says it has received reports of 121 cases of ingestion of Benadryl Extra Strength Itch Relief Gel between 2001 and 2009. Seven were considered serious because patients required treatment in the emergency room or admission to the intensive care unit. Consumers are advised by the FDA to store skin products separately from products that should be swallowed.

At Sokolove Law, we’re here to help.

News developments that we’ll be watching at Sokolove Law:

Bayer, the maker of YAZ, quietly recalled the popular woman’s contraceptive drug last November, according to BNET’s Pharma Analysis blog. The notice was never published to the recall section of the Food and Drug Administration’s website; it was tucked into an FDA “Enforcement Report” instead. The blog reports that 32,856 boxes of YAZ as well as 122,208 of Ocella, a generic version of the birth control drug Yasmin, were recalled for “specifications for the dosage of drospirenone” in the drugs. Last August, the FDA sent Bayer a warning letter over a similar issue, according to our YazTalk.com website. Oral contraceptives have been linked to the risk of serious injuries such as blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.

A Queens woman who allegedly developed “popcorn lung” from a daily habit eating the tasty kernels is suing ConAgra, according to the New York Daily News.  Popcorn lung (also known as bronchiolitis obliterans) is a rare lung disease that can occur through exposure to diacetyl, a flavoring chemical used to make popcorn taste buttery. Agnes Mercado, the plaintiff, claims she ate ConAgra’s Act II popcorn at daily for 16 years, according to the Daily News. Mercado was diagnosed last month with bronchiolitis obliterans; she now uses an oxygen tank and may ultimately need a lung transplant.  The Courthouse News Service reports that Givaudan Flavors, which make the butter flavoring, is also named in the lawsuit.

Congress will investigate the recent recall of children’s cold medicines made by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Law 360 (subscription required) reports that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will schedule a hearing on the recent voluntary recall involving Children’s and Infant’s Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl made by McNeill Consumer Healthcare.  The hearings will look into conflicting accounts by the FDA and McNeill about what sparked the recall and the extent of the problems, according to the report.

Following a systemwide review, the Veterans Affairs Department is limiting the kinds of surgeries some of its hospitals can perform. The Associated Press reports that surgical deaths at the VA’s hospital in southern Illinois prompted the decision to institute a “surgical complexity” level for its facilities nationwide. Based on the new system, less complicated surgeries will now be performed in VA hospitals in Alexandria, La.; Beckley, W. Va.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Danville, Ill.; and Spokane, Wash. Inpatient surgeries remain on hold at the hospital in Marion., Ill., where investigators found evidence that substandard or questionable care led to as many as nineteen deaths between October 2006 and March 2007, according to the AP.

Keep those you love protected from harm. At Sokolove Law, we’re here to help.

Nearly one million Medicare patients experienced safety incidents in hospitals – and a tenth of them died as a result — between 2006 and 2008, according to the new annual study by HealthGrades, a nonprofit healthcare ratings organization. The group used 15 common safety problems to rank the nation’s top 5 percent of hospitals. The most common problems were failure to rescue, bedsores, collapsed lungs, and sepsis. Overall, such events were associated with nearly $9 billion in excess costs.

Consolidation of about 228 federal lawsuits is being sought by attorneys for plaintiffs who may have developed a degenerative condition as a result of using certain pain pumps, writes Law 360 (subscription required). The move for MDL, or multidistrict litigation, is opposed by the pain pump makers and drug companies. A pain pump is a disposable device with a catheter or tube that is used to deliver pain relief medication to a patient’s shoulder joint after arthroscopic surgery. Plaintiffs claim they allegedly developed chrondolysis (a severe condition associated with increased pain and loss of cartilage in shoulder joint space) after using the pumps.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is evaluating clinical trial data that may suggest that patients taking Stalevo, a Parkinson’s disease medication, could potentially face an increased risk for developing prostate cancer. The FDA stressed that its review of Stalevo is ongoing and no new conclusions or recommendations about the use of this drug have been made. Patients should not stop taking their medication unless directed to do so by their healthcare professional.

Three female employees of Bank of America and its Merrill Lynch subsidiary have filed a gender discrimination lawsuit alleging that pay practices at the banks favored men, according to the Associated Press. The complaint brought by one current and two former financial advisers for the banks alleges that men received bigger bonuses and greater promotion opportunities. Bank of America denied the allegations and said it will fight the claims. The company also faces another sex discrimination suit, this one brought by female brokers who claim they got smaller retention bonuses then their male colleagues when the bank bought Merrill Lynch in 2008.