All Topics

• Heart ByPass Drug Recalled

  Robert Blanchard | November 05, 2007 12:06 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  If you are soon to receive a heart bypass, at least you won't face the propsect ohf being given the medication known as Trasylol. After consultation with agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Germany, the drug manufacturer has announced that it is wiithdrawing the drug worldwide. See Article. The FDA approved the drug in 1993 and started re-evaluating the drug's side effects after the publication ...

• Burn Injuries at Halloween

  Robert Blanchard | October 29, 2007 10:42 AM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  With the abundance of candles lit in Jack-O-Lanterns and long draping costumes, burn injuries at Halloween continue to be a concern. Most store-bought childrens constumes will be flame retardent, but home-made costumes may not be. Unfortunately, if you rely on product recalls for protection, safety may come too late. The U.S. Product Safety Commission has issued helpful guidelines for keeping...

• California Fire Losses

  Robert Blanchard | October 26, 2007 3:03 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  Everyone's immediate concern over the horrible widfires of 2007 is the safety of those affected. The first thought is to avoid the loss of life of the firefighters, emergency personal and civilians in harms way. Soon though, homeowners will begin to look to their insurance conmpanies to pay claims for fire damage and loss of their homes. As we saw here on the Gulf Coast, some carriers will step...

• FDA Panel Votes to Withdraw Youth Cold Meds

  Courtney Mills | October 22, 2007 2:36 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  An FDA panel took a vote last week to ban cough and cold products for children under six years of age. According to the experts who testified before the panel, these cough and cold medicines are wholly ineffective in the treatment of cough and colds and have far more risks than benefits.This recommendation comes just a few weeks after drug companies pulled pediatric formulations of cough and...

• Cop Sues Family in Slip & Fall Case

  Courtney Mills | October 10, 2007 2:10 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn of the Orlando Police Department is bringing a negligence suit against the family of a drowning baby she helped rescue earlier this year. Eichhorn alleges that while rendering aid in January of this year at the residence of Richard and Maggie Cosmillo, she slipped on some water and broke her knee, keeping her out of work for over two months. Sgt. Eichhorn further maintains...

• Beware the eBAY Toys

  Robert Blanchard | August 27, 2007 10:49 AM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  While some Chinese toys are being pulled from store shelves, it appears that previously recalled toys are reappearing as auction items on eBay. Injury Prevention Journal looked into children's items recalled between the years of 1992-2004 and 190 of them were still available on eBay. The dangerous toys included a collapsing playyard, a car that has a battery that can overheat and burn children;...

• Preemption Attack on Your Rights

  Robert Blanchard | June 25, 2007 4:56 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  One way the big manufacturers were going to avoid any liability for their actions was to stack the courts to rule that State courts could not interfere (with jury verdicts) in areas where the Feds have regulated. Unfortunately for their diabolic plans, some of the conservatives put on the Supreme Court actually believe in keeping the Feds out where the States can do a better job of protecting...

• Beware Phony Botox

  Robert Blanchard | June 14, 2007 12:06 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  A more hellish scenario is hard to imagine: you go in for cosmetic Botox injections and find yourself unable to speak or breathe. Eric Kaplan spent months trapped in his own body after the couple were injected with a "homemade brew" of Botox. The selling of phony and low grade Botox is not an isolated problem, there are reports of low grade Botox being for as little as 10$ for an injection size...

• Another Contact Lens Solution Causes Injuries

  Robert Blanchard | May 29, 2007 5:31 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  As we looked at injury cases from the Bosch and Lomb Renu with MoisturLoc contact lens solution, we noticed a number of cases of Acanthamoeba infection. This is different from the fusarium fungal infection that had been most widely cited in relation to the Renu product, so predictably Bosch and Lomb denied any relationship between its product an Acanthamoeba infections. As if it it just couldn't...

• Baroody Withdraws

  Robert Blanchard | May 24, 2007 3:52 PM | 0 CommentsPensacola, FL

  Safety advocates scored a minor victory in the recent announcement that Michael Baroody withdrew his nomination to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Protests from consumer groups about his ties to industry obviously helped. Can't this administration appoint anyone that is not an industry insider or political hack?