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Med Mal Lawsuits and Aortic Dissection – The Deadly Condition Often Missed in the Emergency Department

If left untreated, aortic dissection carries a mortality rate nearing 50% within 48 hours of symptom onset. Alarmingly, fewer than half of all cases are correctly diagnosed during the initial emergency department visit. This article, written by Bethany R. Nikitenko and published in The Legal Intelligencer, provides a brief overview of the condition, the standard of care for clinicians …

Mandatory Safety Standard for Nursing Pillows Is Now in Effect

A new federal safety standard that aims to reduce the risks of suffocation, entrapment and falls associated with nursing pillows is now in effect. Nursing pillows are horseshoe-shaped pillows that are designed to fit around an adult’s torso and lift a baby to a more “ergonomic” position for breast or bottle feeding. They are not an infant sleep product, but their …

Mandatory Safety Standard for Infant Loungers and ‘Support Cushions’ Is Now in Effect

A new federal safety standard that aims to reduce the risks of suffocation, entrapment and falls associated with infant loungers and similar pillow-like products is now in effect. Starting on May 5, 2025, manufacturers of infant loungers and other “infant support cushions” must adhere to a mandatory safety standard which was unanimously approved by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) …

U.S. Leads High-Income Countries in Traffic Deaths

The United States leads 27 other high-income countries in its number of pedestrian deaths and overall road traffic deaths, according to a report recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report regards preventable pedestrian accident traffic deaths in the U.S. as a “major public health problem.” Between 2013 and 2022, U.S. pedestrian death rates increased 50 percent …

DOJ Launches Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program

In 2024, the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division launched the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program to combat corporate crime. The Corporate Whistleblower Pilot Program will run through 2027, before being re-evaluated, and is modeled on other successful whistleblower programs like those administered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Pilot Program is designed …

Tabletop Fire Pits Can Explode, Cause Serious Burn Injuries and Death

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is warning consumers to immediately stop using alcohol-burning or other liquid fuel tabletop fire pits following two deaths and at least 60 injuries in the past five years. Tabletop fire pits — also called fire pots, miniature fireplaces and personal fireplaces — are small, portable fireplaces that can be placed on a tabletop or …

NHTSA Issues Final Rule for Auto Whistleblower Program

On December 12, 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published the final rule formalizing its whistleblower program, as required by the Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act. The final rule deviates little from the rule proposed by NHTSA in April 2023, which addressed definitions of key program terms, tip-filing requirements, award applications, how decisions are made on award applications, …

SEC Obtains Orders for a Record $8.2 Billion in Financial Remedies in Fiscal Year 2024

In fiscal year 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed 583 enforcement actions and obtained orders for $8.2 billion in financial remedies—the most ever obtained by the SEC in a single fiscal year. The $8.2 billion consisted of $6.1 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and $2.1 billion in civil penalties. The SEC also obtained orders barring 124 individuals from serving …

When Fun Toys Kill: The Products Liability Case Against Water Beads

Water beads are sold for children as toys, educational materials, art materials, sensory tools, and as projectiles for “gel blaster” guns. Adults use them as decorative, crafting and gardening supplies. When these small, colorful beads are swallowed by children, they do not simply get digested and pass through a child’s body. Instead, they absorb fluids and expand to many times …

February 11th, 2015

A few months ago we wrote about a program called Leapfrog, whose goal is to assign letter grades to the country’s hospitals in an effort to establish their safety in a quantifiable, easily understandable way. Writing for PennLive, David Wenner reports that the Affordable Care …

February 4th, 2015

The investigative journalism website ProPublica, in conjunction with the New York Times medical blog The Upshot, recently published an article analyzing drug companies’ spending over the past five months in order to ascertain what drugs and medical devices they were promoting most heavily. The answer, it …

January 28th, 2015

When it comes to regulation, there are many areas in which the FDA could improve its practices–compounding pharmacies, energy drinks, herbal dietary products, generic drugs,testosterone supplements, plastic water bottles, and cancer treatments–but we can now add diabetes medication like Januvia, Byetta, and Victoza to this list …

January 21st, 2015

In 2006, eighteen-year-old Natasha Weigel was killed (along with a close friend) when the Chevrolet Cobalt she was driving left the roadway and struck several trees. It was clear immediately that the vehicle’s air bags did not deploy as they were supposed to, but the …

January 14th, 2015

What do pharmaceuticals, automobiles, reusable plastic water bottles, and roller coasters have in common? All are manufactured or operated under conditions that are inadequately regulated by the federal government, whose job it is to protect consumers from corporations valuing their bottom lines above individuals’ safety. As …

January 7th, 2015

Back in October 2012, this blog began covering a fungal meningitis outbreak originating in Massachusetts that eventually killed sixty-four people and injured over 750 more across twenty states. Authorities traced the debilitating outbreak to the New England Compounding Center, a pharmaceutical company that provided personalized …

December 31st, 2014

Last week’s post ended with a tentative prediction that over the next few years we will see a push at the national level to enact caps on damages in civil cases. To explain it simply, a cap on damages is the equivalent of denying a …

December 24th, 2014

Now that the dust has settled after this year’s midterm elections–in which thirty-three Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs–both the House and the Senate will be in the hands of Republicans (for the first time since …

December 17th, 2014

This blog has been covering issues related to generic drugs–warning labels, FDA oversight, and legal immunity–for more than a year, but this industry is nothing if not persistent. One of the largest manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals in the world–Ranbaxy Laboratories, with net revenue of $2 …

December 10th, 2014

In the past few months, this blog has explored ways in which class action lawsuits and FDA regulation affect the lives of everyday Americans. Today we will discuss the corporation Herbalife–which sells “nutrition, weight-management, energy and fitness, and personal care products”–in a story that combines …

December 3rd, 2014

One of the issues this blog has covered tirelessly is tort reform, which (in states that have passed such legislation) has neither created more doctors nor lowered overall healthcare costs. Writing for the New York Times’ healthcare blog The Upshot, medical school professor Aaron E. …

November 26th, 2014

Americans are living longer due to advances in medicine, but the physical safety of the elderly population is becoming even more precarious. According to a New York Times article published in late October, “The number of people over 65 who died after a fall reached nearly …