Safety News Article Excerpts

Daily Green, "Is Golf Causing Diabetes? NIH Says Pesticides Commonly Used on Golf Courses Linked to Disease"

          A pesticide commonly used on the turf at golf courses was linked to a whopping 250% increase in diabetes risk to the workers who apply the pesticides, according to one of the largest studies of its kind, by the National Institutes of Health. The chemical, trichlorfon, was associated with an 85% increase in risk of diabetes for even infrequent users, and a 250% increase in risk for those who had applied it more than 10 times. Of those who used the chemical frequently, 8.5% developed diabetes, versus 3.5% of those who had never used it. The pesticides main current use is on turf, such as at golf courses. More...

Detroit Free Press, "Rules on car roofs need to be better, senators warn"

          Key U.S. senators warned federal auto safety regulators today that Congress would act if regulators produce unacceptable and ineffective rules for strengthening vehicle roofs to protect people in rollover crashes. The debate over the exact cause of deaths in rollover accidents, which claimed 9,362 lives in 2006, and how much blame rests with a vehicle's roof strength has raged for years among safety advocates and automakers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been working on a new plan for boosting roof-crush standards ahead of a July 1 deadline, since its first proposal issued in August 2005 faced sharp criticism from automakers and safety groups. More...

Medical Devices Today, "Physician-initiated Alert Sparks Zimmer Investigation Of Durom Hip Failures"

Zimmer is investigating failures of its Durom hip implants after a prominent joint reconstruction surgeon sent a letter reporting a series of problems with the device to the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. More...

Detroit News, "NHTSA to investigate 1.7 million Ford Windstar vans for cruise control defect"

          The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary defect investigation into 1.7 million Ford Windstar vans. The vehicles have a cruise control deactivation switch that's been recalled in nearly 10 million other Ford vehicles. NHTSA said they've received 130 complaints of fires in the vans, with 36 complaints in the last year. Two of the fires caused structural damage to homes, NHTSA said. More...

FOXNews.com, "Quaid testifies of Heparin overdose peril to newborn twins"

Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress today of a harrowing, near-fatal drug mixup in which his newborn twins were administered 1,000 times the normal dose of a blood thinner

Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress Wednesday that the near-fatal overdose of Heparin given to his newborn twins last November underscores the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable through lawsuits, a remedy that is becoming increasingly problematic for injured consumers. At issue before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee is a move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to step in and defend the pharmaceutical companies against such lawsuits. More...

Sacramento Bee, "Settlement to aid injured boy; Magnets from a toy were swallowed by 4-year-old, severly injuring intestine"

William Finley, a 4-year-old then living in the Shasta County city of Anderson, began vomiting on Aug. 2, 2005. When it didn't stop after three days, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where doctors were unable to diagnose his ailment. The surgeon found the large intestine had been punctured and discovered a "pair of button magnets stuck together within the pelvis." William's parents identified the magnets as coming from a "Magnetix" toy he received the previous Christmas. William would have died within hours if not for the surgery. More...

Learn more about Magnetix toy magnet injuries and your legal rights.

Reuters, "Death Rate Rises on Trasylol: Bayer pulls Trasylol supplies after study"

          Bayer AG is removing remaining supplies of its heart-surgery drug Trasylol from the U.S. market after a long-awaited study found it raised the risk of death compared to two alternatives, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday. The announcement followed publication earlier on Wednesday of a Canadian study by the New England Journal of Medicine that showed patients given Trasylol had a more than 50 percent higher death rate than patients who got other, cheaper drugs. More...

New York Times, "Defective Ceramic Hip Implant Latest News: Squeaking Artificial Ceramic Hips"

          Hundreds of patients have become guinea pigs in an unfolding medical mystery. Their artificial hips are made of ceramic materials that were promoted as being much more durable than older models. But for reasons not yet fully understood, their hips started to squeak, raising questions about whether the noises herald more serious malfunctions. More than 250,000 Americans get total hip implants each year, a procedure that generally costs close to $45,000. Hip replacements have a success rate of more than 90 percent, based on patients’ achieving relatively pain-free mobility after recovery periods that range from a few months to a year. More...

International Herald-Tribune, "Merck wrote drug studies for doctors"

          The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal. The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals. The article cited one draft of a Vioxx research study that was still in want of a big-name researcher, identifying the lead writer only as "External author?" More...

New York Times, "Faulty Ford cruise control switch has been blamed for 1,500 fires"

          After six recalls to correct problems with millions of Ford Motor Company cruise-control switches blamed for almost 1,500 fires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took an unusual step. In February, it issued a consumer advisory urging owners whose vehicles had not yet been fixed to have the switches disconnected immediately. More...