Oklahoma Injury Lawyer Blog

"Pastrami on rye" - Pastrami Sandwich. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Manda Packing Company has recently recalled nearly 500,000 pounds of meat. Recent reports indicate that the recall is due to a possible contamination from Listeria monocytogenes.

Although there have been no reported cases of illness stemming from the potentially contaminated meat, Listeria is a very serious infection. Anyone who believes they may have purchased meat from the Manda Packing Company should be sure to check their refrigerators and freezers for contaminated products.

Meats involved in the recall include roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese, corned beef, and pastrami. Potentially contaminated meats have a sell by date between May 13 and June 9, 2013, as well as an establishment number of "EST. 8746A." A full list of recalled products, provided by the USDA, is available online.

This recall has proved problematic, because many of the meats involved in the recall were sold at deli counters, were customers do not receive the sell by date and establishment number of a product after they make a purchase. If you have any questions concerning the recall, call Director of Quality Assurance and Food Safety Josh Yarborough at (225) 344-7636, ext. 59.

After Karen Bartlett took a mild pain pill to treat pain in her shoulder, she developed a rare reaction to the drug, sulindac, which caused two-thirds of her skin to slough off. Bartlett had to spend two months in a hospital burn unit, and was even placed under a medically induced coma.

Bartlett later sued the company that manufactured the generic pill she took, Mutual Pharmaceutical Company. In her lawsuit, she claimed that the design of sulindac was dangerous and defective. When describing her experience at trial, her surgeon said Bartlett experienced "hell on earth."

The Supreme Court is now set to hear a case considering whether Mutual can in fact be held responsible for the injuries suffered by Bartlett. In a decision handed down two years ago, the Supreme Court found that consumers of generic drugs could sue their manufacturers only in limited circumstances. The court came to this conclusion after finding that "such companies did not have control over what warning labels said and therefore could not be sued for not alerting patients to the risks of taking their drugs."

Bartlett's case is different, however, because she is arguing that the drug itself is defective. Mutual argues that, because the company has no control over the drug's design, they cannot be held liable for its defects.

After 6-year-old Oklahoman boy who was injected with Botox ended up on a ventilator, his mother sued Botox manufacturer, Allergan Inc. Shortly after the trial began, however, Allergan and the boy's mother reached a settlement agreement.

The boy was injected with Botox to treat spasticity in his legs. According to his attorneys, he developed acute botulism as a result of the injections. As a result of the botulism, he lost the ability to breathe on his own and was placed on a ventilator. The boy's attorneys argued that Allergan marketed the drug as safe for this use, although it lacked the proper regulatory approval.

The lawsuit, which began on February 19, 2013, settled shortly after the boy's treating doctor testified. According to U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron, "While the amount is confidential, young Jackson Wells will be well taken care of for life." Judge Cauthron then closed the case in a one-page order. Spokespeople for Allergan have declined comment on the settlement.

Allergan raked in over $1.7 billion in sales of Botox, its most popular product. According to Allergan's earnings statement, profits generated by Botox are divided equally between medical uses and treatment for wrinkles. In 2013, Allergan anticipates to top $2 billion in sales.

As reported in The New York Times, a jury has recently awarded former prison guard Loren Kransky, $8.3 million dollars. The substantial award came after Kransky accused DePuy Orthopedics - a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson - of marketing a hip implant that they knew to be faulty. The hip implant has since been recalled.

Kransky's attorneys argued that black pieces of metal broke off from the hip replacement and caused various health problems. The jurors agreed with Kransky that the ASR XL implant caused him to suffer health problems including metal poisoning. They declined to find, however, that the company acted with malice, foreclosing any award of punitive damages.

Kransky's suit is one of thousands of similar suits alleging fraud and negligence based on the all-metal ball-and-socket hip joint. DePuy Orthopedics pulled the hip replacement from the market two years ago, amid reports that the implant has left thousands with crippling injuries.

According to attorney for Kransky, Doug Saeltzer, "The message is that these cases are valid, that the injuries are real and severe, and Johnson & Johnson and DePuy have to pay significant money for their mistakes." DePuy plans to appeal the verdict (as usual), and claim that the "ASR XL was properly designed."

According to a recent lawsuit filed against the manufacturer of popular birth control pill, Yaz, a mother was forced to have her arm amputated after a blood clot caused by the drug caused the limb to die. The 32-year-old Oklahoman took the oral contraceptive for five years before the amputation occurred.

In 2012, after feeling a tingling in her left arm, the woman immediately went to the hospital. Despite her early detection that something was amiss, ischaemia had already set in, meaning that there was nothing the doctors could do to allow her to keep her arm. Ischaemia is a condition brought on by blood clots, which cause serious infections and tissue damage.

According to the woman, "I had no pulse at my wrist. The doctor found it faintly at my elbow and forearm. They took me to a room and started hooking me up to IVs. It was excruciating. I was feeling my hand dying. I was watching it turn black." She was further devastated to find out that her insurance, Medicaid and Sooner Care, would not cover a prosthetic arm.

The makers of Yaz are certainly not strangers to such lawsuits. Yaz has been the target of multiple lawsuits filed over ingredient drospirenone, which not only causes blood clots, but has even lead to death in some cases.

An Oklahoma woman has been the latest to join in a string of consumers across the United States to sue popular shoe manufacturer Sketchers over injuries allegedly caused by the popular shoe, the Shape-Up. The woman was wearing the shoes inside her home when she suffered a broken ankle.

According to the lawsuit, Sketchers Shape-Ups are " defective due to their rocker bottom sole, which altered the Plaintiff's gait and caused severe lateral instability." So far, over 100 injured consumers have filed similar lawsuits. The lawsuits are being consolidated and will be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

Sketchers Shape-Ups have been on the market since 2009. Already in 2010, the American Council on Exercise released a study, which found that there were serious questions about the safety and efficacy of Shape-Ups. In 2011, Sketchers Shape-Ups were responsible for more consumer injury complaints than any other product in the Consumer Report database.

Sketchers manufacturers have previously paid $40 million to settle claims brought by the Federal Trade Commission, which essentially stated that Sketchers had made unfounded claims concerning the product's ability to assist people in losing weight and toning their buttocks, legs, and abdominals in their advertising.

In November of 2011, 16-year-old boy purchased a Monster energy drink before going to church to participate in volunteer work. After consuming the beverage, the boy suffered from cardiac arrest and collapsed. The boy's mother, Angela Wheat, is now suing the makers and local distributor of Monster.

According to legal documents, "Shortly after consuming the Monster Energy drink, [he] collapsed and lost consciousness while working with other church members to clean the church." The boy was immediately given CPR, and taken to the hospital for treatment. Attorneys for Wheat claim that the boy's consumption of the energy drink is the sole cause for the cardiac arrest he suffered.

Wheat is seeking over $75,000 in damages. She claims that the drink's packaging had a "design defect and failure to warn." Wheat further alleges that the company was negligent, and participated in unfair and deceptive trade practices.

According to a report released by the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") in 2012, during a three-year time span there were three deaths that may have been connected to the consumption of a high-caffeine beverage. This lawsuit is the first of its kind for Oklahoma, although a number of similar lawsuits have been filed across the country by parents of teenagers who died after consuming a Monster energy drink.

Takeda pharmaceuticals, the Japanese company that manufactures popular diabetes drug Actos, is quickly becoming the target of many lawsuits.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Actos for use in 1999. After its approval, it quickly became the most prescribed drug to treat patients with Type 2 diabetes. Actos is now believed to double the risk of bladder cancer in those who use it.

After a French study revealed that Actos increased the risk of bladder cancer in patients, France and Germany both banned the use of Actos. The United States has yet to follow suit and ban use of the drug. The FDA, however, has issued a warning that prolonged ingestion of Actos may be linked to bladder cancer. According to the FDA warning, "Use of the diabetes medication Actos (pioglitazone) for more than one year may be associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer."

United States officials have also become recently aware that Takeda Pharmaceuticals knew that Actos increased the risk of bladder cancer in patients before they even began to market the drug. The growing number of cases against Takeda are currently being consolidated into multi-district litigation in Illinois and California state courts.

Oklahoma residents are among those who have already filed lawsuits based on Actos. If you are currently taking Actos, consult your health care provider before discontinuing drug use.

Alli 120 capsule refill (Photo credit: Newbirth35)

Alli is currently one of the most popular over-the-counter weight loss drugs available. According to a study discussed in Forbes, however, Alli may cause permanent liver and kidney damage to those who use it.

The enzyme that digests fat in a person's intestines is called lipase. Orlistat assists people in losing weight by blocking lipase so that fat passes through a person's body rather than being absorbed into it. Orlistat is therefore problematic because lipase is not the only metabolic enzyme that it is able to interfere with.

Although the FDA announced a new warning for Orlistat that discussed the potential for liver toxicity in May of 2010, the warning merely stated that reports of such side effects were "rare." The new study shows that the possibility for organ damage is much stronger.

After an Oklahoma jury found that a carbon-fiber-enhanced Louisville Slugger bat was responsible for the injuries sustained by a 15-year-old pitcher, a federal court has thrown the decision out. According to the court, there was "no basis for a reasonable jury to find that the bat had 'dangerous characteristics.'"

As reported by Forbes, attorneys in various states have been able to show that baseball bats made out of aluminum are more dangerous than those made from wood. This is because the aluminum bats can launch a faster ball. In the opinion, the judge states, "Plaintiffs assert that a bat that hits the ball too fast is unacceptable."

Jurors agreed with this assertion last December, when they ordered Louisville Slugger manufacturer Hillericn & Bradsby to pay $871,000 to injured pitcher Dillon Yeamon, and another $80,095.85 to his parents. Yeamon's face was shattered when he was hit with a line drive. The new decision asserts that attorneys for the plaintiffs did not conclusively establish that the bat itself was the cause of Yeamon's injuries. The attorneys were unable to show that the bat displayed any measurable characteristic that made it defective.

The difference between the bats? About 64 milliseconds. According to WolframAlpha, that's the average length of a human blink of an eye.

Last October, at least 14,000 people were injected with a tainted steroid that has since been linked to an outbreak of fungal meningitis. Three months later, the health crisis is far from over. As The New York Times reports, while instances of meningitis have decreased, there have been an increasing number of spinal infections occurring in the vicinity of the original injection site.

At least 200 such spinal infections have already been reported, and doctors expect to see more. Accordingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have implored doctors to carefully check patients for these dangerous infections, which can often prove difficult to detect. According to the deputy chief of the mycotic diseases branch of the C.D.C., Doctor Tom. M. Chiller, "we're not out of the woods . . . people could still be harboring or developing infections in their spines now."

Although the infections are capable of causing immediate and serious pain and discomfort to a patient, symptoms can also take months to develop. Often, initial M.R.I. results for patients who have not begun to show symptoms come back negative. Doctors are therefore forced to repeat scans, rather than prematurely prescribe toxic drugs that may not be needed. If left untreated, the spinal infections may cause nerve and bone damage. Moreover, the fungus may be able to permeate the spinal column and cause meningitis.

The Chicago Tribune reports that three people whose fingers were snipped off by Martha Stewart chairs "won" settlements against the company:

The settlements were reached with Sandy Caffoe of Jamestown, N.Y., a 67-year-old who lost the function of her right hand when two fingers were amputated in 2008; college student Lisa Peterson, 22, of Des Plaines, Ill. who had her right ring finger amputated in 2009; and Kaitlyn Damron of Pikeville, Ky., who was four in 2006 when the tip of her left pinky finger was severed.

A few notes:

• I find it odd that the article states that they "won" settlements. I'm sure if you asked any of the plaintiffs if they won anything, they would gladly have their fingers back to normal rather than any dollar amount they received. They also didn't "win" anything, they settled their cases. The settlement dollar amount, whatever it was, is ggenerally lower than what the plaintiffs would ask for at trial. Settling takes the inherent risk in going to trial, that's why they are lower.
  
• Note how long it took for them to recover anything. The 4 year old child's finger was severed in 2006. That's 5 year's ago.
  
• Like most personal injury settlements, this one was confidential.
  

My wife and I are currently shopping for a stroller for our son (he's now just over 13 weeks old!). It's surprising that a lot of the strollers out there are not actually safe.

The latest one recalled is the B-Nimble Stroller manufactured by Britax Child Safety, Inc. The stroller may have brake failure (basically, the brake pedal will click when it's pressed, but it might not actually be locked). The recall is for about 20,000 units in the U.S. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission information on the recall can be accessed here. 

In a letter to denture cream manufactures, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently acknowledged the risk of zinc poisoning associated with denture cream usage.  The FDA states:

There are literature and research that suggest that zinc contained in some denture adhesives may be a contributing factor in these adverse events. Although zinc is an essential nutrient, overexposure may result in zinc toxicity. We are notifying all manufacturers of denture adhesives and asking for their assistance in dealing with this public health issue.

The manufacturers were asked to take steps to mitigate the risk of zinc poisoning with their products.  Here's the Denture Cream Notice and Recommend Action Letter.