Safety News Article Excerpts

Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Did artificial flavoring hurt woman's lungs? Popcorn factory worker in Cincinnati court today"

After spending nearly a decade working at an Ohio popcorn factory, Kathryn Rayburn developed an incurable lung disease. Doctors say her lung capacity is just a third of what it's supposed to be because of her workplace exposure to a butter flavoring called diacetyl. Rayburn, 48, faces off in a Cincinnati courtroom today against makers of the flavorings she believes hurt her lungs. At the same time, the Obama administration is kick-starting a long-stalled effort to develop workplace standards for the food ingredient that federal officials have linked to lung damage when it is inhaled. More...

New York Times, "Flight 3407 Crash: Icing Theory in Buffalo Plane Crash Is Questioned"

Information released by the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday cast doubt on a theory that ice buildup was a direct cause of the crash of a commuter plane near Buffalo that killed 50 people last month. Information recovered from the plane's flight data recorder instead suggests that the pilots' actions were possibly a factor. More...

New York Times, "Medtronic Links 13 Deaths to Faulty Heart Device"

Medtronic said Friday that at least 13 people might have died in connection with a heart device that it recalled in 2007 but was still in widespread use, including four patients whose deaths were related to efforts by doctors to surgically remove the product. The new data reflect the first fatality update by Medtronic since October 2007, when it recalled the device - a thin electrical cable that connects an implanted defibrillator to a patient's heart. More...

Daily Journal, "U.S. Justices Rule Federal Drug Approval Doesn't Bar State Law Claims"

Trial lawyers can breathe a sigh of relief because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that federal drug labeling laws don't prevent patients from filing product liability claims under state laws. In one of the major cases of the court's current term, the justices ruled 6-3 that plaintiffs can file suit against drug companies in state court over pharmaceutical products if U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved labels fail to adequately warn consumers of the products' dangers. That had been the case for decades, but in recent years the Bush administration, supported by the pharmaceutical industry, had argued that certain federal consumer protection laws trumped state law claims. More...

San Francisco Chronicle, "Supreme Court ruling says patients can sue drugmakers"

In a resounding victory for consumers over the pharmaceutical industry, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that patients harmed by medication can sue the drugmaker for neglecting to list known dangers on the label even if federal regulators haven't required them to do so. The 6-3 decision upheld $6.7 million in damages to a musician from Vermont who lost an arm to gangrene after being injected in 2000 with an anti-nausea drug manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. More...

New York Times, "A Win for Injured Patients"

The Supreme Court made a wise and surprising decision on Wednesday when it rejected a drug company's claim that it cannot be sued for damages in state courts if a product and its label have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The 6-to-3 decision will benefit consumers at the expense of drug manufacturers. More...

WPIX (NY), "First Lawsuit in Buffalo Plane Crash"

The first lawsuit stemming from the crash of a commuter plane into a home outside Buffalo, New York was filed Friday by the relatives of one of the passengers. All 49 people on the plane and one occupant of the home were killed when the Continental Airlines commuter plane crashed in icy weather on February 12th. More...

New York Times, "Study Finds More Failure of Heart Device"

A widely used heart device recalled two years ago by Medtronic may be failing in patients at a rate significantly higher than previously known, a new report by two prominent cardiac specialists indicated. The Medtronic device, known as the Sprint Fidelis lead, is an electrical cable that connects an implanted defibrillator to a patient's heart. More...

New York Times, "Lawmakers Seek to Return Right to Sue Device Makers"

On the same day last month that a federal judge in St. Paul threw out hundreds of lawsuits against the maker of a faulty heart device, a man entered a nearby hospital to have one of those flawed products surgically removed. The risky operation went terribly wrong. As doctors extracted the device, a thin electronic cable, from the patient's heart, a vessel was punctured, causing extensive bleeding. The 33-year-old patient, Mark Turnidge, died two days later, leaving behind a wife and two young sons. More...

Associated Press, "FDA says 3 deaths associated with Genentech drug"

Three patients taking a Genentech drug are believed to have died of a rare brain infection, a known risk with the skin-clearing treatment, according to federal health officials. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday confirmed three cases and a possible fourth of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, which causes swelling of the brain and is usually fatal. All the cases were reported in the last six months. More...

Southeast Texas Record, "Galveston suit blames Yamaha Rhino ATV for boy's injuries from rollover"

A Santa Fe couple is seeking $3 million in damages from Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. after their son was injured in a Rhino ATV rollover more than a year ago. Warren and Terry Aldous filed a lawsuit on behalf of Brandon Aldous against Yamaha and numerous other businesses. Court papers say Brandon Aldous was riding a doorless Yamaha Rhino ATV near his parents' residence on June 2, 2007, when the vehicle rolled over as the boy made a turn. Brandon was pinned underneath the ATV, but his mother and a neighbor were able to pull him out. The boy was then taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston where physicians determined he suffered severe injuries to his left leg. More...

Bloomberg News, "Possible Pilot Error Examined in Buffalo Plane Crash"

U.S. safety investigators are looking into the possibility that pilot error played a role in the Pinnacle Airlines Corp. crash near Buffalo, New York, on Feb. 12 that killed 50 people, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Pilot actions are part of the probe, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said today in an interview. “We do look at human performance in our aircraft investigations,” Holloway said. More...

The Buffalo News, "Continental Flight 3407 reported 'significant icing' before crash that killed 50"

The flight crew of the Continental Express plane that crashed into a Clarence Center home Thursday night faced "significant icing" problems as it approached the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. All 49 persons aboard the plane were killed, as well as one man on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board revealed the icing findings this afternoon following initial review of Flight 3407's flight data and cockpit voice recorders. More...

New York Times, "Salmonella Was Found at Peanut Plant Before"

The Georgia food plant that federal investigators say knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter also had mold growing on its ceiling and walls, and it has foot-long gaps in its roof, according to results of a federal inspection. More than 500 people in 43 states have been sickened, and eight have died, after eating crackers and other products made with peanut butter from the plant, which is owned by the Peanut Corporation of America. More than 100 children under the age of 5 are among those who have been sickened. More...

Law360 (New York), "GAO Tells FDA To Toughen Class III Device Review"

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office is recommending that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ratchet up its review process for medical devices that are designated class III, or "high risk," in order to comply with legislation that is almost two decades old. According to the report, which was published Thursday, Congress expected the FDA to require all class III devices to undergo a stringent premarket approval process pursuant to the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990. More...

San Francisco Chronicle, "Carbon monoxide kills one, injures several in SF apartment building"

A carbon monoxide leak in a San Francisco apartment building killed a 77-year-old man and injured eight other people Monday night, even though an alarm meant to detect the dangerous gas had been beeping since Sunday night. Firefighters went to the five-story building at 816 Geary Street, near Hyde Street, twice on Monday evening. The first time they transported someone with shortness of breath to the hospital, but did not realize the person was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. More...

Los Angeles Times, "Osteoporosis drug Fosamax linked to serious diseases"

Studies suggest the drug could raise the risk of cancer of the esophagus and a bone-killing infection in rare cases

In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine published Jan. 1, a Food and Drug Administration official reported that since Fosamax was first marketed in 1995, 23 cases of esophageal cancer in patients taking the drug -- including eight deaths -- have been reported to the agency. And a USC study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dental Assn. reported that nine patients who were taking Fosamax suffered osteonecrosis of the jaw -- a bone-killing infection -- after having teeth extracted at USC dental clinics. More...

MSNBC.com, "Officials fear rise in monoxide poisonings; Experts say desperate families are turning to dangerous heat sources"

Severe winter weather and a stormy economy could combine to make one of the season's common killers, carbon monoxide poisoning, even worse this year, public health and safety officials say. Coast-to-coast snowstorms and power outages, paired with spiking rates of utility shutoffs spurred by record unemployment, are likely to increase the accidental exposures that typically send more than 20,000 people to the emergency room and kill nearly 500 each year. "I'm pretty sure we're going to see a big bump in carbon monoxide poisonings this winter," said Dr. Eric J. Lavonas, associate director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver. "This economy is the perfect storm." More...