2008 News Of The Day Archive

• In a Virginia case a circuit court held that a consulting review of medical records by a doctor does not establish a doctor-patient relationship between the reviewer and another doctor’s patient. In finding for the defendant doctor, the court reasoned that there was no allegation that the doctor undertook the plaintiff’s care by consent. 12-06-07.

— Virginia Medical Law Report 

• Four organ transplant patients at three Chicago hospitals contracted HIV and the hepatitis C virus from organs from a high-risk donor. The infections were discovered in late 2007. Officials blamed the viral infections on a rare flaw in the testing procedures. The last time HIV was contracted through organ transplants was more than 20 years ago. 12-08-07.

— Chicago Tribune 

• A brain-damaged toddler will receive $11.5 million for his medical care and life-long expenses after an alleged botched birth. A settlement was reached in a case that claimed a doctor failed to use a vacuum extractor. 12-08-07.

— AP 

• Japanese and U.S. scientists announced in early December that a gene has been discovered that, when activated by cholesterol drugs (statins), causes toxicity to muscles. Muscle weakness and pain are sometimes side effects of these drugs. 12-13-07.

— UPI

• A new software called SimVascular takes MRI data and converts it into imagery that allows doctors to better gauge the correct heart surgery for a patient.

— Stanford University 

• On Aug. 1, 2007, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed in the Federal Register that home medical equipment (HME) suppliers be required to purchase a surety bond in the amount of $65,000. This proposal is based on the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997.

— Elizabeth E. Hogue, Esq. 

• The rate of accidental poisonings from prescription drugs increased sharply from 1999 to 2004.

— Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 

• Healthcare providers who receive Medicare or Medicaid money must ask admitted patients if they have a living will or other directive.

— Patient Self-Determination Act

• Americans spend about $275 billion per year on prescription medicines. By 2012, about $60 billion worth of these drugs will lose their patents. Patients will have more and cheaper drug choices.

— The New York Times

• Connecticut has been experimenting with GPS devices to track criminals, as opposed to keeping them incarcerated.

— NPR 

• A new use for DNA testing: Archaeologists have found that DNA can be extracted from the saliva of North American humans who have been dead for thousands of years. The saliva is nestled in quids, blobs of plant matter from plants such as yucca, that ancient people chewed and then spit out.

— NPR 

• Half of all traffic accidents involving commercial vehicles are not caused by the commercial vehicles.

— NPR

• An Ohio court has ruled the child sex offender “1,000 ft.” rule to be unconstitutional.

— NPR 

• The teen and young adult suicide rate jumped about 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 (76 percent for young girls). In 2003 the FDA issued black-box warnings about anti-depressant drugs (SSRIs) such as Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil, and SSRI prescriptions dropped 22 percent afterward. Some experts believe that lessened use of the medicines is linked to the increased suicide rate. The rate among teens lowered during the 1990s after the SSRI drugs were released in 1988. Experts are skeptical of making any causal links.

— wire services, The New York Times 

• The demand for lawyers has grown at about half the rate of the rest of the economy since 1988. The number of JDs conferred has risen from about 38,000 in 2001-02 to almost 44,000 in 2005-06, while legal work in some sectors (med mal, PI, securities class actions) has fallen, and the number of law schools has increased by 11 percent since 1995 to 196. The top one-fourth of law school graduates have seen starting salaries rise, while the bottom 75 percent have actually seen income drops. Adding to young attorneys’ pain: tuition rates have tripled those of inflation in the last 20 years.

— Wall Street Journal, 9-24-2007 

• A large study found that half of all abortions in the world are unsafe. The study also showed that the abortion rate is fairly consistent worldwide, even in countries where abortions are illegal.

— Guttmacher Institute, WHO

• The first kidney removal via a small incision in the navel has been completed, eliminating the usual long scars to the lower back.

— University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 

• As cars are made lighter to increase fuel efficiency, the death rate in accidents rises as a result of the reduced weight.

— National Center for Policy Analysis 

• A new and simple Alzheimer’s blood test has proven about 90 percent accurate in early testing. 

— Stanford University 

• A jury in Massachusetts awarded $26 million to a boy who suffered brain damage in a delivery gone wrong. The case is one of the largest in the state’s history.

— The New York Times

• The average RN makes $56,558 per year if paid by the hour, and about $68,000 per year if on salary.

— RN 

• Tattoo inks are approved by the FDA for cosmetic use, but not for subcutaneous injections. The FDA does not track adverse events stemming from tattoo inks.

— Science News 

• Three children in Albany, N.Y., were awarded $2.5 million in late October for exposure to lead paint and dust found in two apartment buildings where they once lived. The siblings, Jasmine, Tina and Juan Vasquez, suffer from learning disabilities.

— Newsday 

• The FDA is requiring that impotence drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra bear label warnings about the possible side effect of hearing loss.

— wire services

• Baby crib bumper pads are too dangerous when compared with the benefit they give, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine.

— Health Day News, The Washington Post 

• Johnson & Johnson must pay $1.25 million for the death of a 14-year-old who died from blood clots linked to use of the Ortho Evra® birth control patch. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed claiming that clots and strokes resulted from the patch’s use.

— Bloomberg 

• Scientists are exploring the possibility of prodding female human eggs to spontaneously grow (parthenogenesis) as a way to create stem cells. Some species of fish, reptiles, birds, insects and plants can create viable young from eggs that have not been fertilized, but humans cannot. Such “virgin” eggs in humans will not grow into a fetus for chromosomal-defect reasons. Tricking human eggs into growing in such a manner would create clumps of cells (blastocysts) that could be used as stem cells, but because the cells cannot grow into a viable fetus, ethical concerns are skirted. President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, and even the Roman Catholic Church, have not yet dismissed these eggs on ethical grounds.

— Science News 

• A new HPV blood test is purported to be significantly better than Pap smears in detecting cervical cancer.

— New England Journal of Medicine

• A Spanish chemist has modified a common CD player to read biochemical reactions that are smeared onto the surface of what used to be CDs. The inexpensive modified CD players perform as well as $40,000 to $80,000 micro array detectors and can have as many as 300,000 samples crammed onto a single disk. Commercial uses may include homes, doctors’ offices and use in outdoor settings.

— Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain 

• Bayer AG has stopped sales of its drug Trasylol® because the drug has been found to increase the risk of death. The drug is used during heart surgery to slow bleeding.

— The Washington Post 

• A British study released in early November found that, among babies who died of SIDS, nine out of ten had mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Women who smoked were four times more likely to have a child die of SIDS, or cot death. The U.K. government is considering tighter laws to curb smoking during pregnancy.

— Bristol University’s Institute of Child Life and Health via XProLegal.com 

• A new wave of plaintiff litigation is swirling around the chemical gadolinium. The heavy metal is used in kidney disease patients, but the substance can cause nephrogenic system fibrosis, or NSF, which hardens the skin. Managing NSF is very expensive - as much as $30,000 per week for blood treatments - which makes the potential for damages high. Bayer, General Electric and McKesson Corp. are three companies who are prime defendants.

— law.com

• The GAO says about 7,000 foreign companies manufacture drugs that are sold on the U.S. market. Congressional investigators assert that the FDA is woefully lacking in oversight of these companies.

— The Washington Post 

• Pharmaceutical companies spent $4.5 billion in 2006 on ad campaigns directed at consumers - more than 400 times what they spent 20 years ago. Legal experts note this expenditure weakens the companies’ defense strategy in “failure to warn” claims, and weakens their “learned intermediary” (the doctors) shield. [Story, Page 5].

— Medical Malpractice Law & Strategy 

• On the heels of Wyeth’s $134 million loss in Nevada wherein three women claimed the companies’ hormone replacement drugs caused their breast cancer, a Minnesota judge in late October dismissed a similar suit after a plaintiff’s failure to prove causation. Next, a jury verdict in Philadelphia was overturned wherein it was alleged that hormone replacement therapy causes cancer. In tossing the verdict the judge said that the plaintiff did not provide enough evidence to show that Wyeth was “factually negligent” in linking HRT to cancer. Thousands or HRT cases are pending nationwide. 12-08-07.

— The New York Times, law.com 

• The Massachusetts Medical Society is hoping the state’s legislators will approve a law to shield an “I’m sorry” from being used in court against a doctor when he or she commits a medical error. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut and Washington have such laws. 

— The Boston Globe

• A Syracuse woman has sued a dentist who allowed a drill bit to break off in her jaw. The dentist tried to excise the bit, but pushed it farther into her sinus cavity. The dentist allegedly had been swaying to the tune of “Car Wash” when the bit broke off. The woman alleges her suit was prompted when the dentist, who had promised to pay her subsequent medical bills that would be incurred in the bit’s removal, declined to pay.

— Chicago Tribune 

• Bristol-Myers and AstraZeneca will have to pay $14 million in damages, says a federal judge. In a class-action suit, the drug makers were found to have inflated their pharmaceutical prices, thereby defrauding customers, insurance companies and Medicare.

— Reuters 

• A Massachusetts jury awarded $4.1 million to the family of a woman who died in 1999 after having an ovarian cyst removed. Bernice Edwards’ attorneys claimed she caught pneumonia at a hospital, and that the doctors proceeded to do her surgery anyway. She was left on a ventilator and soon died. 11-06-07. 

— Boston Herald 

• The cost of giving care to an aging parent or spouse is about $5,500 annually. When incidental costs such as fuel, food and copays are added, the cost swells to $8,700. These estimates are double previous estimates. 11-19-07.

— National Alliance for Caregiving, Evercare

• Almost half of early stage pancreatic cancer patients are not offered the Whipple surgical procedure. The procedure has become safer in recent years and offers a 25 percent better chance of survival after five years than does no surgery at all.

— Annals of Surgery 

• Surgical fires may be more common than once thought. While they still are rare, a study extrapolated data and concluded that several hundred probably occur per year 

— one in every 87,000 surgeries of the 50 million or so surgeries performed per year. Most fires happen during head, face, neck or chest surgery. 11-07-07.

— ECRI Institute 

• Several women in Georgia have filed a lawsuit against California-based Mentor Corp. over problems with the ObTape medical sling. The sling, which has not been sold since 2003, was supposed to stop incontinence but allegedly created side effects of pain, infections, abscesses, discharges and cellulitis. 11-09-07.

— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

• The makers of Amgen, Epogen, Aranesp and Procrit have issued stronger warnings for the drugs. The anemia drugs can be harmful if overused by causing heart attacks, death or a worsening of cancer. The use of the drugs has been in decline in recent years. 11-09-07.

— The New York Times

• In a study, about one-third of users of dry powder inhalers for asthma and chronic obstructive disease were found to use the devices incorrectly. 11-11-07.

— Newscom 

• The FDA in late November ordered a “black box” warning be put on the drug Avandia®. The diabetes drug has been shown to increase the risk of heart attacks. Canadian and European officials have been much harsher with restrictions. Another study has linked Avandia (rosiglitazone) to an increased risk of osteoporosis. The drug appears to increase the activity of cells that degrade bone structure. 12-03-07.

— AP, Bloomberg, Nature Medicine 

• A 93-year-old nursing home resident’s family was awarded $4 million following his death after he was given solid food instead of liquids against doctor’s orders. A replacement aide fed the elderly man. The regular staffers for the home were on strike. 12-02-07.

— AP 

• A woman won $10 million against a Macon, Ga., hospital in late November after a sponge was left in her abdomen following colon surgery. Though the lost sponge was discovered within a few days of being misplaced, the woman had kidney failure, infections, follow-up surgeries and is now disabled. 12-03-07.

— Macon Telegraph

• A study of 1,600 doctors revealed that, while 96 percent of them say that incompetent or impaired colleagues should be reported to authorities, only about 45 percent of them actually do this. While most doctors claim that they would reveal any financial ties to referral services to which they send patients, only 24 percent actually do. And not as many doctors actually take uninsured patients as espouse to. 12-04-07.

— Annals of Internal Medicine 

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released its list of special focus facilities, of SFFs. These facilities are the worst performing 54 nursing homes in the country. The list can be found at www.cms.hhs.gov/ CertificationandComplianc/ Downloads/SFFList.pdf. 12-05-07.

— Modern Healthcare 

• A lawsuit involving hospitals’ state-granted physician peer-review privilege may be headed to the Supreme Court. Critics of the privilege argue that it makes discovery impossible when a doctor’s civil rights might be violated or his employment is terminated without merit. Proponents contend that peer-review standards and anonymity, as mandated by the Joint Commission, are best maintained when peer-review records are off-limits. Adkins v. Christie, 488 F.3d 1324 (Ga. 2007). 12-05-07.

— Modern Healthcare 

• A class action suit has been filed against Cailfornia’s largest emergency room doctor organization, CEP America, alleging price gouging. The suit contends that it is unfair and unreasonable for healthcare providers to charge uninsured patients “retail” prices while insured patients pay prices that are deeply discounted. Such suits have failed in the past as courts have reasoned that giving discounts to volume purchasers (insurance companies) is within normal business practices. The plaintiffs are Pamela Hope Cincotta and Joyce Kraus represented by Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann and Bernstein. 12-06-07.