Archive for the ‘Defective Product’ Category

Yaz and Yasmin claims and lawsuits in Tennessee and across the U.S, have resulted from this drugs use for birth control. Yaz and Yasmin were marketed by Bayer as a safe contraceptive with minimal side effects. In 2008 they were over 17% of the contraceptive market. and over $1 billion in sales.

Studies from the British Medical Journal suggest that women who take these drugs are more than twice as likely to have complications as women who use other contraceptives.We now know that for some women the side effects of taking this medication can include stroke, heart attack, deep vein thrombosis, gall bladder problems, and blood clots.

As a result, over 100 lawsuits have been filed against Bayer (the manufacturer of Yaz and Yasmin) across the United States. For more information about this litigation, click here. If you think you may have a Yaz or Yasmin claim, your time may be running out to make a claim. Contact a lawyer immediately.

If you or anyone you know has been killed or suffered a personal injury in Tennessee, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Accutane is an acne medication, and has worked well for people who have acne. The problem with this drug is that is has side effects – it was withdrawn from the market in June 2009.

The latest side effect uncovered with accutane use is irritable bowel disease. Users of accutane (or its generic  isoretinonin ) are twice as likely to suffer from this disease. Irritable bowel disease affects the colon and can cause varying levels of discomfort, from mild to severe. To learn more about irritable bowel syndrome, click here. For more information on this story about Accutane, click here.

If you or anyone you know has suffered personal injury in Nashville or Tennessee, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Nashville (alternative Tennessee) personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Off label use of prescription drugs is when a drug is used for something not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. How does this happen? Drug companies get a drug approved for use based on studies that are reviewed by the FDA. Once the drug is on the market, they use their salespeople to promote the drug for uses that were never reviewed by the FDA,  and often have never been studied. It’s not illegal for a doctor to prescribe a drug “off label”, and many doctors rely on big pharmaceutical companies to provide accurate, truthful information about other uses of their drugs. Whoops. Since May 2004, Pfizer, Bristo-Myers Squibb Co., Eli Lilly & Co. and four other drug companies have paid a total of $7 billion in fines and penalties for marketing medicines for unapproved uses – in some cases these unapproved uses have caused unnecessary sickness and deaths -but significant profits.  For more information about this practice and the incredible criminal fines paid by drug companies, click here.  Our office has successfully made claims for consumers in Tennessee and other states against drug companies for the Dalkon Shield, Breast Implants,  Fen-Phen, Vioxx, Rezulin, and Paxil.

Auto accidents from sudden acceleration is often thought to be the fault of the driver, but not always. Sudden acceleration in Toyotas and Lexus automobiles has been a problem for at least 8 years. Since 2001 more than 1,000 Toyota and Lexus owners have reported that their vehicles suddenly accelerated on their own. When this happened the cars went out of control, crashing into other cars, trees, walls, and even going off the road. Obviously if a child, animal, or another adult was around – the consequences would be much worse than vehicle damage, and the blame would have been placed on the driver! This is what anyone would consider a “product defect“.  To state the obvious – cars aren’t supposed to suddenly accelerate on their own, and when they do – bad things are likely to happen. Although complaints were filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Bush administration officials and appointees chose to dismiss the majority of complaints by owners without investigation. It’s clear now that there have probably been more than 2,000 instances of sudden acceleration since 2001, and a 2007 NHTSA survey found that 10% of Lexus owners complained of this problem, putting the number even higher.

Why would appointees from any political party in control of a governmental safety organization assume that consumers would report a problem if it didn’t exist? Or assume that the incident was always the fault of the driver? What kind of self-righteous, pea-brained industry hack would allow a dangerous defect like this to go uninvestigated for the better part of a decade? FEMA wasn’t the only department of the Federal Government that was put in the hands of wrong minded people.

For more information, click here.

Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (CSI) has recalled all lots of the ViperSheath^TM due to reports about stretching or fracture of the sheath during heart catheterizations. In the event of a device fracture, broken segments of the device may require immediate surgery to be removed and/or to control bleeding. A failure also has the potential to perforate or dissect a vessel. The ViperSheath^TM is a developed and manufactured by Thomas Medical Products, Inc., and distributed by CSI.

The people who need this kind of surgery are obviously, not in the best of health. The procedure itself has risks. How does it happen that a device that is going to be used in delicate, dangerous surgery is not tested enough to identify such a defect? There is money to be made in doing heart catheterizations, and in providing devices like the ViperSheath that may make the procedure better. That’s fine with me and with most everyone I would guess, but putting something on the market that can break off inside one of your arteries and perforate the artery is not what anyone would call responsible design or manufacturing. Crazy stuff. We all deserve better.

To any of the patients who have had a problem as a result of this device, our sympathy. We hope the consequences to you are minimal. CSI says it has notified all customers by FedEx about the recall and says it is arranging for the return of all products…and if they don’t get them all? What happens then? What happens to those who had a perforation of an artery but were lucky enough to survive? They’re not talking about that. People in Tennessee or anywhere else who have had ViperSheath used in a procedure should talk to their doctor to determine if there was any problem with their procedure that was related. However, make sure the doctor knows you are not blaming him or her – this is a problem with the device that doctors didn’t know about.

The recall encompasses products distributed from March 25, 2009 to October 21, 2009

To read the entire recall, click here.

Each winter people are killed quickly and silently by carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide (often referred to with its chemical abbreviation CO) generally comes from a poorly vented heating device. It could be a kerosene heater, a gas heater, or even a hot water heater. Older people and those on limited income are often victims, as are those who are trying to save something on their electric bill. The problem is that people often assume that if there is a gas, that there will be some smell like there is with natural gas (which has a scent added to it for safety). They victims often just fall asleep and don’t wake up. Warnings by the manufacturer of the heating device may be non-existent or inadequate, or the venting may be inadequate. The best advice is to ventilate the heated space with fresh air -but when it’s cold that’s the last thing people think of doing. For a detailed fact sheet on carbon monoxide risks, click here.

Over a half million pounds of ground beef have been recalled due to an outbreak of  e coli poisoning from ground beef distributed by a packing company in western New York. E coli is a bacteria that can cause nausea, vomiting, bloody stools, cramps, diarrhea, and fever. Complications can include  fatigue, weakness and kidney failure. Children may develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). This is a condition that is life threatening. Ground beef in Tennessee comes from many states – hopefully none from this packer, but the point is that e coli poisoning is potentially life threatening, especially to children. If your child develops signs of food poisoning after eating ground beef, get them to the hospital and have them tested for e coli and treated appropriately. Often the tainted meat is the result of “grinding”  of scraps and meats from several slaughterhouses, none of whom will agree to have their meat, trimmings or scraps tested. Legal claims for e coli poisoning are based on unsanitary handling practices, and in some cases violations of a companies own safety practices.  For a detailed review of how e coli gets into ground beef, click here.

Guardrails save thousands of lives each year by keeping cars away from dangerous drop-offs, ravines, and other traffic. Traffic deaths would be infinitely higher without them. Like most things, there is a right and wrong way to place guardrails. There is a safe way, and an unsafe way.  If guardrails are place too high, too close to the roadway they don’t serve their purpose and can become an object that can cause injury and death. A recent case in New Jersey illustrates the tragedy from the unsafe, incompetent use of guardrails. A 34 year old man was in a car on his way to the airport. When the driver lost control of the car, the car hit the guard rail. So what? Usually this would mean some damage to the car, and missing an airplane…but nothing more. Unfortunately, this guard rail was too high and too close to the roadway, it served as a spear that ended up piercing the passenger compartment and killing the passenger. This unnecessary, wrongful death resulted in a lawsuit and ultimately a multi-million dollar settlement, but despite the settlement and dangers of the guardrail the turnpike authority didn’t fix it. They paid the money but didn’t fix the problem?  What kind of goobers are in charge of things up there? The widow has gone on record pointing out that the guardrail is still unchanged, and needs to be. Let’s hope they pay attention to her, finally.

An Oregon jury has ruled that John Deere is not legally responsible for the mutilation of a little girl’s leg from a John Deere sit down mower that kept the blade moving when the mower was put in reverse. This is despite the fact that industry standards and competitor manufacturers do the contrary. When other mowers are put in reverse, the blade stops and eliminates any risk of injury from backing over something.  There are apparently between 250-300 injuries per year involving machines without this safety feature, why would a jury rule for John Deere when their mower was clearly unsafe compared to other models? Well, part of the story the jury heard is that the father who ran over his little girl’s leg and mutilated it, has 5 children under the age of 9 at home. He left them inside the house without supervision while he went out to mow the lawn. He didn’t know his little girl had come outside until it was too late. Is it really fair to blame the dad for this tragedy? Are parents in Oregon any different than parents in Tennessee? When there is a catastrophic injury to a child, any parent in Nashville or anywhere else would feel a sense of guilt, but is that fair ? Any other mower would have done comparatively little damage because the blade would have been stopped as the father put the mower in reverse. Injuries to children are often tragic, and quite frankly this is an injury that was foreseeable to a manufacturer. It’s why all the other manufacturers have blade stops on their sit down mowers. Parents should be responsible for their children, but going out to mow on a hot summer day (like we have in Nashville) while the kids are in the house doesn’t seem like an example of awful parenting. It was just one dad doing what 1000’s of other dads do when they have to. For the full story about this verdict, click here.