Blog

August 1st, 2012

It’s safe to say that technology is here to stay. It’s spreading at an incredible rate and into previously unconnected places, like the dashboards of our automobiles. A particularly rich and detailed infographic posted on the tech website Mashable estimates that 15 percent of American …

July 25th, 2012

When we think of robots easing burdens for humans, we may think of Rosie from The Jetsonsor the droids from Star Wars. But robots are already helping us with surgeries in real life. The robotics firm Intuitive Surgical has rolled out a product called the …

July 18th, 2012

In today’s post, we again address the issue of tort reform. In previous months, we have published pieces on the pro victims’ rights documentary Hot Coffee, how tort reform has affected the healthcare system of Ohio and “loser pays” rules in Texas. As part of …

July 11th, 2012

As of April of 2012, courts in Union County, New Jersey had 863 civil cases in backlog, that is, 863 cases that could not be heard because there are no judges to preside. This is the largest backlog in this county’s history and will now …

July 3rd, 2012

The Guttmacher Institute (a non-partisan reproductive health think tank) conducted a survey from 2006 — 2010 in an attempt to determine how many American women have used birth control at some point in their lives. Birth control advocates trumpeted their findings throughout the media: 99 percent …

June 27th, 2012

In recent months, this blog has covered issues related to birth defects, specifically those that fall under the umbrella of neural tube defects (or NTDs) like spina bifida, anencephaly and encephaloceles, some of which are linked to a lack of b-vitamin folic acid or use …

June 20th, 2012

On May 18, 2012, Ben Present of The Legal Intelligencer wrote an article called “State Supreme Court to Address Admissibility of Text Messages” which, as its title suggests, explains the circumstance surrounding what will surely be a noteworthy precedent regarding whether or not “unauthenticated” text …

June 13th, 2012

Some medical errors are more avoidable than others, and some of the most avoidable must be prescriptions. To clarify, the issue is not the drugs themselves, but the slips of paper on which a doctor writes drug information to be decoded later by pharmacists. Many …

June 6th, 2012

The sex abuse scandal that has publicly rocked the Catholic Church for more than a decade has actually been around much longer than that. Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press writes that one priest, who happens to have founded an entire religious order dedicated to rehabilitating …

May 30th, 2012

Priapism is a prolonged, unwanted and often painful erection which requires prompt medical treatment to avoid the risk of permanent sexual dysfunction and impotence. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic of priapism, sufferers may be hesitant to report it, but delay by the …

May 23rd, 2012

The disease of shingles is a reactivation of the varicella zoster (chicken pox) virus. It is in the herpes family. The herpes diseases like chicken pox remain latent or hidden in certain nerve roots in the spinal cord. With shingles, there is a reactivation of …

May 9th, 2012

On the topic of social media, this blog has already covered the judicial precedents being set in the state of Pennsylvania with regard to insurance companies probing plaintiffs’ Facebook profiles. As judges become more familiar with the sensitive nature of an individual’s social media profile …