It has now been reported that for the first time in 20 years, U.S. health officials have lowered the threshold for lead poisoning in young children.  The new standard means hundreds and thousands of young children could be diagnosed with high levels of lead.  Too much lead is harmful to developing brains and can mean a lower IQ.  The standard is for children younger than six.

Really there is no safe level of blood lead in children according to Mr. Portier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lead poisoning is detected through a blood test.  The change means poisoning will be defined as 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.  The old standard was 10 micrograms.  Under the old standard lead poisoning in children has been on the decline in the United States.  Experts estimated that approximately 77,000 and 255,000 children had high levels of lead.  This recent change could raise the count to 450,000 cases.

For additional valuable information, please visit: Lead Free Kids, Safety At Home or Mayo Clinic.

Kids continue to be targets of tobacco manufacturers. They have been from the very beginning and as tobacco company sales fall, the tobacco industry has demonstrated a willingness to pull out all the stops to maintain their beginner smoking programs.

In 2009, as part of President Obama’s comprehensive Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes were banned.

Lucky Strikes Uses Santa Claus as a Role Model

Anyone who has even the most basic knowledge of the history of cigarette manufacturers like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds and their targeting of the youth market can appreciate why cigarette makers would manufacture candy and fruit flavored cigarettes.  Almost 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teens and over 440,000 die each year from cigarette-related deaths, the goal of such a ban is just as obvious. In fact, tobacco companies spent millions conducting studies of youth smoking trends long after the Surgeon general’s report in the 1960’s. A 1974 study comparing the effect of menthol cigarettes on youthful smokers set forth:

”More than 50% of men smokers start smoking fairly regularly before the age of 18 and virtually all start by the age of 25.”

“If a person is going to smoke cigarettes, he generally starts during his teens…”

“Most of the young men spoken to indicated very early initial experiences with cigarettes. Many talked about first trying a cigarette before the age of ten.”

So it should come as no surprise that while the new federal law called for merely the ban of candy-flavored cigarettes, flavored tobacco products such as chewing tobacco and flavored cigars are not against the law.  And who then is surprised by the fact that these products are rising in popularity, especially among the grade-school aged crowd.

This trend is troubling.  Any tobacco product that a child uses, whether it is a cigarette, cigar or chew, contains nicotine.  Nicotine is a drug, a powerful drug.  In 1988, the Surgeon General determined that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to that of heroin and cocaine.  One need not be a specialist in addiction to know the dangers of a child exposing their still maturing brain to any addictive drug, much less one as powerful as heroin.

This trend is also disturbing.  Why?  Because among other things, it highlights exactly the type of opponent that anti-tobacco advocates (and those hundreds of millions of Americans who actually do value our children’s lives) are up against – an industry who preys on our kids and, who short of federal regulation, have shown no willingness to stop preying on our kids, simply because it is obviously the right thing to do.

Kudos then, to Miami-Dade County, for attempting to join only New York City, Providence, R.I., and Santa Clara, CA, as the only municipalities that have banned flavored cigars and chewing tobacco.

Foie Gras is said to be a delicacy. I have never had it, but I am sure there are real foie gras lovers out there. I am, however, hoping to dissuade you of this particular craving.

What is foie gras? Liver. Not just any liver, but the liver of a duck or a goose.

Before we proceed, let’s understand that this is not a vegetarian issue I am writing about; this is a humanity issue. This is an issue about us humans actually acting humane.

The mass production of foie gras has been a subject of heated debate; not because ducks or geese are killed for their liver, but the methods used to supposedly “improve” the delicacy of foie gras.

To produce foie gras, ducks and geese are force fed by shoving a tube down their throats two or three times per day. The pipes severely damage the esophagus in the duck and the goose. As you can imagine, the birds are terrified and simply wait for this abuse to be inflicted each day. This process induces a very painful condition called fatty liver. This condition is intentional and supposedly “improves” the quality of the foie gras.

Fatty liver in ducks and geese undergoing forced feeding is a condition that often ultimately results in the animal being incapable of moving, induces respiratory distress, seizure, depression, unconsciousness and death. This process of force feeding also leads to bacterial infection, fungal growth, and pneumonia.

Because the liver acts as a filter for the blood and screens toxins, dangerous buildup of streptococcus, E. coli and dangerous toxins can be found in livers of these ducks and geese.

A number of plaintiffs have recently filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture alleging that the agency is violating several sections of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs maintain that:

“Force-fed foie gras, which consists of the pathologically diseased livers of force-fed ducks or geese, is by definition an unwholesome, adulterated poultry product that is unfit for human consumption under the PPIA. Foie gras is created by a force-feeding process called gavage, which is engineered to induce acute hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease, in ducks or geese. Overwhelmed by fat deposits, the livers of force-fed birds begin to degenerate and their capacity to filter toxins from the circulatory system diminishes. Toxins accumulate in the blood, causing serious systemic diseases that require condemnation under the 25 PPIA, 21 U.S.C. § 451 et seq., its implementing regulations, and USDA agency policy.”

A recent study from the National Academy of Science has linked the consumption of foie gras with the development of amyloidosis in humans. Amyloidosis can be a deadly disease with symptoms including: heart failure, arrhythmia, pulmonary bleeding, enlargement of the spleen, rupture of the spleen, hemorrhaging of the gastrointestinal system, and serious neurological damage.

Many countries in the world have outright banned the force feeding of animals, including: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Austria, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Once the fourth largest producer of foie gras, Israel banned forced feeding of animals in 2003.

If animal cruelty is an insufficient reason for you to refuse to consume foi gras, perhaps the fact that more than 14 modern countries have banned the cruel treatment is enough.

Or if you simply do not mind the fact that by consuming foie gras you are probably sucking down dangerous toxins and bacteria, maybe the below video will change your feelings. Fair warning though, the video is not for the faint of heart and really is as shocking as the inhumane abuse being inflicted upon these animals each day:

Every so often a law comes along that so blatantly discriminates against one group of people that we all must stop and wonder how legislators can justify their actions even to themselves.

It may be that the target of such obviously unfair laws is no longer limited to race or religion. Instead, many of the individuals that now face the most significant discrimination are the poorest among us; whose lower socioeconomic status apparently entitles them to less justice than the rest of us. That is very certainly an opinion that a majority of our legislators held when they recently passed Florida Statute § 766.118(6).

A recent manifestation of their apparent lack of concern for the less fortunate in Florida,  F.S. § 766.118(6), purposely limits the ability of Medicaid recipients to make the same financial recovery as non-Medicaid patients. Florida Statute 766.118 was originally enacted in 2003 with the Florida legislature placing caps on what non-economic damages a plaintiff can recover in a lawsuit arising from medical negligence.

Non-economic damages in Florida include portions of a judgment allocated for:

• pain and suffering
• mental anguish
• loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life

Simply, this means that regardless of what a jury decides that an injured person’s pain & suffering is valued at, that recovery is limited to whatever the legislative branch dictates. This is true without regard for the individual of that person’s injuries, disabilities, or their suffering.  Apparently, Florida lawmakers have determined that the citizens of our state that take the time to serve as jurors are simply incapable of hearing evidence in a case first hand and then rendering an acceptable award of damages.

The Florida Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in McCall v. The United States of America over whether non-economic caps on medical negligence verdicts under Florida Statute § 766.118 are unconstitutional.

Though the constitutionality of non-economic caps has been a matter of great debate since the law was passed in 2003, the 2011 amendment to the law placed even further limitations on recovery for those who receive Medicaid. Florida Statute §766.118(6) limits a Medicaid patient that is the victim of medical negligence to a recovery of only $300,000 in non-economic damages and only $200,000 from a single practitioner or doctor. This is considerably less than the other caps imposed by Florida Statute §768.118, on anyone who is not a Medicaid recipient.

For example, in cases involving death or a permanent vegetative state, a non-Medicaid individual may recover up to $1 million in non-economic damages from practitioners, but a Medicaid patient may only recover up to $300,000.

What it comes down to is lawmakers treating the lives of those of lower economic means with less importance and valuing the significance of their pain and suffering more cheaply than that of everyone else. With Florida Statute §766.118, the legislature decided that human lives and pain and suffering are only worth so much, while section 6 amended that to declare that the lives and suffering of the less fortunate are worth even less.

I’ve always agreed with Ghandi’s quote that, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” In Florida, our lawmakers have decided that those in the most need should be treated as inferior to everyone else.

Politics and political influence has no business within the courthouses and courtrooms of Florida. The rule of law should be just that, rules that are followed regardless of one special interest groups views or another. Our judicial system is the last great guardian of the rights of individual citizens in our state.

This is why our firm is a proud host of a program occurring on May 17^th, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, and held at The Harriet Himmel Theater, located at 700 S Rosemary Ave., West Palm Beach.

This program is a wonderful opportunity to receive information about promoting an impartial justice system and how each of us can be a part of defending justice in Florida.

The speakers will include guest panelists Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente, 4^th District Court of Appeal Judge Martha C Warner and City of Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler.

This forum is not a fund raiser; it is, rather, an excellent opportunity to hear from these intelligent and insightful panelists about the importance of keeping politics out of the courts and out of the judicial process.

For more detailed information, go to the Defending Justice website or call our law firm.

Hmmmm, sound familiar? In my prior posts I have tried to hone in on some of the real root causes of mounting pharmacy errors. Unfortunately the Big Retailers want to create their own personal version of Hammertime’s “you can’t touch this” by pigeon holing any error into the “we are all mere mortals that make errors” column.

Then, lo and behold, I read with great interest in USA Today that CVS’s top gun attorneys are out there defending  two CVS pharmacies from being shut down by the DEA ( Drug Enforcement Agency ).

The new excuse they are using? The “we are a big busy pharmacy” defense and we would never “knowingly” fill an illegitimate prescription for heavy narcotics for cold hard cash.

According to University of Florida Emeritus Professor Paul Doering, CVS should not have filled these sketchy prescriptions:

“Someone from Kentucky who travels to a doctor in Fort Lauderdale and presents a prescription for oxycodone in Sanford, Fla., is to me a huge red flag, I can’t speak for every pharmacist in the world, but this pharmacist is not going to fill that prescription.”

So maybe a big busy pharmacy that is understaffed is the root cause of the problem after all?

If I hadn’t read it for myself I would have thought I was dreaming. So when it comes down to being shut down, facing fines, and who knows, even criminal investigations, out comes the “big busy pharmacy” defense. However, when an understaffed pharmacy is looked at as the root cause analysis for prescription errors that maim and kill people, we get the argument that it’s “a red herring” and the big chain pharmacy argues that they always have sufficient staff to properly fill prescriptions.

The truth is the epidemic of prescription errors are part and parcel of adopting a fast food mentality to dispensing dangerous medications. Yes, we are indeed all human and we make mistakes. I certainly don’t think anyone would intentionally harm someone. However, I also suspect that neither does the person who gets behind the wheel of a car when impaired, but it is still unacceptable and even criminal to allow that dangerous condition to exist.

If you remember the classic I Love Lucy episode where Lucy had to grab chocolates off the conveyer belt to put into boxes her “human error rate” went from zero to whole lot of chocolates going on the floor, in her uniform, and in her mouth when the conveyer belt was set too fast.  Like I have said before an error with my burger or even with my chocolate may be a nuisance, but it won’t likely kill me.

Until the pharmacy industry recognizes the serious nexus between understaffing and pharmacy errors, more tragedies sadly will most certainly be on the rise. That is the dirty little secret that business models driven by profits as opposed to safety, have to be addressed. The truth is, depending on the product, one business model may not be right for another. The changes must ultimately come from within these groups, but it will be investigations like this one by the DEA in Florida and civil suits accompanied by punitive damages will ultimately be the impetus to force the necessary self-reflection for the retail pharmacy industry.

Until then I intend to keep calling it like I see it……

For those of us who read George Orwell’s book, 1984, the thought of “Big Brother” watching us can be a little chilling. But, when is Big Brother-like oversight a good thing?

When we can use the information to understand how people are injured and killed in vehicle crashes and how we may be able to lower those injuries or deaths. In addition, maybe it is also acceptable if it helps us understand what caused an accident and what might be done about it.

When I investigate vehicle accidents, I regularly use data from what is commonly called the “black box” or the “Event Data Recorder” in cars and trucks. We are able to very often secure valuable information that can assist in reconstructing what happened to culminate in a crash.

When inspecting a vehicle after a crash, one of the things important to obtain and analyze is black box data such as:

• Engine speed (rpm’s) for the  seconds before impact
• Vehicle speed (mph) for the  seconds before impact
• Seat belt usage (belted or unbelted)
• Throttle percentage
• Air bag deployment
• Brake application
• Steering input
• Force of impact (delta v)

Although not all vehicles have black box data that is useful in accident investigation and reconstruction, the number of models that do are increasing with each model year.

So, combining Event Data Recorder with the evidence at the scene, we are able to reconstruct the events of any given accident. The evidence at the scene typically includes:

• Skid marks; indicating braking and swerving attempts
• Yaw marks; gouge marks caused when the crash damage deforms metal and causes the road surface to be damaged at the point of impact. Sudden braking; the length of tire marks starting from when brakes are first urgently applied or the smoothing of the roadway when antilock braking occurs and skid marks are absent due to the proper use of antilock braking system (ABS).

We will prepare a detailed diagram of the accident scene, noting road configuration, impact points and all the above information. We obtain 360° photographs of the scene including vertical to scale aerial photos and, in some cases actually have a laser scan done of the entire scene; which allows us to virtually reconstruct the scene.

Collecting evidence and evaluating vehicle crash data requires experience and knowledge and, frankly, not just anyone is qualified to do it in a competent manner. That is why many of us at Searcy Denney have chosen to specialize in accident investigation and reconstruction.

It is all about research and publishing. That is the pressure supposedly exerted on academics, scientists and some physicians – “publish or perish”.

Scientific research is no different than any other form of research from the perspective of “garbage in garbage out”. These days most of us do some form of research on the internet. It may be simply trying to find the very best camera or the very best doctor for a tragic illness. The internet is crammed full of valuable information and…garbage. Separating the wheat from the chaff can sometimes be difficult.

Scientific research can not have the same margin of error that we may be able to live with when we are shopping for a camera, for example. Scientific and medical research has a far broader and potentially more injurious result if it is, well…garbage.

The New York Times published an article discussing the recent increase in retractions that seems to be permeating scientific and medical research. The Times interviewed two noted editors of the Journal of Infection and Immunity. They have recently discovered dozens and dozens of retractions that have had to be issued by very noted scientific journals.

One of editors told the Times that “he feared that science had turned into a winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.”

A Harvard Medical School professor stated that “there are problems all through the system.”

To be certain, this is a very scary epiphany for the scientific community to have and perhaps it really is a revelation to some of them. Sadly, it is not new to many people who have been victims of bad or skewed medical or scientific research. We have been writing about at least a portion of the problem for some time:

“Ghostwriting Mysteries of the Medical Device Industry” (2009)

“Ghosts Writing About Science and the Public Health” (2009)

“The Drug Business, Broadway, and Casper the Friendly Ghost” (2009)

“Pain Pumps and a Lack of “Reliable” Scientific Evidence” (2010)

“Scientific Research or Corporate Marketing?” (2010)

“Pride & Prejudice About Product Safety” (2010)

“Dietary Supplements — Litigating Unregulated “Drugs” (2010)

In the New York Times article the various experts offer explanations such as:

“What people do is they count papers, and they look at the prestige of the journal in which the research is published, and they see how may grant dollars scientists have, and if they don’t have funding, they don’t get promoted,” Dr. Fang said. “It’s not about the quality of the research.”

Dr. Ness likens scientists today to small-business owners, rather than people trying to satisfy their curiosity about how the world works. “You’re marketing and selling to other scientists,” she said. “To the degree you can market and sell your products better, you’re creating the revenue stream to fund your enterprise.”

Putting aside the very real danger to the lives of patients of promoting untrue, invalid or fabricated scientific research, there are also very practical, but just as damaging repercussions of this invalid research.

The medical and scientific industry has complained and whined for decades about lawyers bringing “junk science” into courtrooms in an effort to substantiate negligence cases in drug, medical device and medical negligence cases. The courts have gone so far as to impose standards, referred to in federal court as the Daubert Rule. The failure of a party to be able to have their science withstand the scrutiny of the Daubert principles can and will result in dismissal of claims. The problem is that much of the evaluation and analysis exacted in the Daubert rule is based upon research published in noted journals. Experts evaluating the science in those cases rely on research in those same scientific journals.

The ultimate damage can caused by judges who, at least in some cases, have been encouraged to dismiss cases based solely on one side or another arguing that the available research does not support the science being used by a particular party in a case. Tragically injured people have lawsuits dismissed by judges simply because the “scientific research” that the court decides to acknowledge as “authoritative” does not seem to support the claims.

We increasingly are discovering that the research used in courts to dismiss claims may be simply the result of paid “ghostwriting” by manufacturers; the greed for grant dollars; you are being a “small business owner” instead of a scientist; or the desire for career advancement.

The result? Tragically injured people, with very legitimate claims, are barred from having their “day in court”.

Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley has developed and launched a new website designed to provide consumers and clients with valuable information about a potentially dangerous drug — Pradaxa.

Searcy Denney believes that consumers deserve to be well informed about drugs, medical devices and products in order to prevent unnecessary injury or death. Our new Pradaxa site is a part of our continuing efforts to alert and educate about drugs and medical devices.

For the latest articles and information, please visit the Pradaxa site and for information concerning other drugs or medical devices, please visit our mass tort site, SearcyMassTort.com.

Are you really a “super-tasker”? Are you willing to risk your safety and the safety of others on the arrogant belief that you are?

Dr. David Strayer (University of Utah) and his associates have conducted very indepth research and testing in the area of distracted driving. Of necessity, a large portion of that research has focused on the human brain’s ability to multi-task and what affect that has on overall quality of cognitive and motor functioning.

Having read some of Dr. Strayer’s research, let me make it easier for you: for almost every single person on the planet, multi-tasking is a myth and the human brain is incapable of achieving it.

Dr. Strayer has looked at the possible existence of “super-taskers” who possess the super human ability to process more than one task at a time. Some of Dr, Strayer’s findings in the search of the mythical:

“Supertaskers have a strikingly remarkable ability to successfully perform two attention-demanding tasks that over 97% of the population cannot perform without incurring substantial costs in performance.”

“Indeed, our studies over the last decade have found that a great many people have the belief that the laws of attention do not apply to them (e.g., they have seen other drivers who are impaired while multitasking, but they themselves are the exception to the rule). In fact, some readers may also be wondering whether they too are supertaskers; however, we suggest that the odds of this are against them.”

So, only a potential 3% of the population may fall into the category of a “supertasker”; while we mere humans comprise 97% of the rest of the population.

In 2010, the National Safety Council estimated that 28% of all accidents, including fatalities, on US highways are the result of drivers using cell phones. Further, it has been estimated that as many as 10% of all drivers during any daylight hour are involved in a cell phone conversation. If there are 125 million drivers on the roads daily, 12.5 million cell phone conversations occur. For each of those 12 million drivers there are a multitude of possible tasks they are trying to deal with in addition to driving, holding a cell phone, listening, talking and processing information in the conversation.

No computer is capable of keeping up with all the logical and objective tasks to which we demand our brains to pay attention. Add to all of these possible distractions, manual processing and brain processing that one thing with which no computer ever has manage – emotional distraction:

• You left the house after a fight with your wife (sub husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc…)
• You left the house after a fight with your kid.
• You left the house only to find the garage door opener did not work.
• You left the house only to remember you left your wallet.
• You are stuck in traffic that looks like it goes on forever.
• Someone just cut you off. Someone is tailgating you at 70 mph.
• You just lost a loved one to death.
• You are going through a divorce. You have financial problems.

Any one or combination of these any many other emotional distractions add to your inability to process information while tooling down the freeway at high speeds or negotiating bumper to bumper traffic.

So, give yourself a break and do not fall into the “I am a super tasker” trap. Be happy with being a regular human, with limited ability to process information.

Buckle up, turn the phone off, leave the coffee at home, and focus on propelling that 3000 pound car down the road in a safe and concentrated manner.

If you have any doubts about the value of not texting or talking on a cell phone. If you can not conceive of the damage you might cause, watch this video illustrating the very personal costs. Beware; it is not for the faint of heart.