Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

The saddest personal injury cases we see in our serious injury law practice often times involves those who have suffered traumatic brain injury resulting from an automobile, tractor-trailer collision or some other traumatic event, with these tragedies being seriously compounded by the unavailability of insurance. While there has been some media attention on the number of uninsured individuals in this country who have no available health insurance coverage, the impact of this problem is not really seen or appreciated until one is confronted with overwhelming medical needs and there is a complete lack of medical coverage available to meet those needs.

One case we are currently handling involves a Hispanic gentleman who suffered permanent and irreparable brain damage. He was taken by life flight to the hospital where he was stabilized. Once he was stabilized, however, the hospital that had been treating him free of charge (because he had no health insurance) discharged him. After discharge, he no longer has the ability to seek appropriate medical treatment because he has no health insurance coverage and being from another country does not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. His medical needs are overwhelming and yet he has no access to medical care in the richest country in the world.

This individual’s problem is no different in many ways from American citizens who are the victims of traumatic brain injury and do not have health insurance coverage. Oftentimes, the individuals involved may or may not qualify for Medicaid or other assistance. It takes years to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. In the meantime, after the traumatic brain injury has incurred and the patient is stabilized, the necessary ancillary services to a recovery, such as rehabilitation services, vocational and physical therapy and others are typically completely unavailable to the uninsured because they are not affordable and there is no way to get such treatment.

In these very tragic and sad cases, many times the only possibility of recovery for the injured individual is litigation against the party responsible for the traumatic event. While such cases can result in a financial settlement several years after the event, due to the cost and delay of litigation, nonetheless, sometimes its too little and too late for those who are in need of immediate medical care to address their injuries and insure a recovery.

The American Medical Association needs to take a hard look at whether it is doing enough to make medical care available to those who cannot afford it. While there are many clinics and other local, state and federal government facilities, those who have been seriously injured many times do not have access to the type of care that he needs. We even see this with our returning veterans from Iraq, much less the uninsured. This problem is a national problem and needs to be addressed at the local, state and federal level.

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Posted In: Brain Injury

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Federal regulators are sounding a warning about dangers associated with the use of insulin pumps by children and teenagers. Insulin pumps are used by tens of thousands of young people worldwide with Type 1 diabetes.

The Food and Drug Administration is warning parents to be vigilant in watching their children's use of the pumps. They are not advising against using the pumps, but suggested further study to address safety concerns in teens and even younger children who use the popular pumps.

Researchers found that in the last ten years there have been 13 deaths and more than 1,500 injuries connected with the pumps. Some of these were the result malfunctioning pumps, but at other times, teenagers were careless or took risks..

The researchers found that some teenagers were not instructed how to use the pumps correctly, dropped them or didn't take good care of them.
The insulin pumps are popular because they allow young people to live more normal lives. They account for $1.3 billion in annual sales around the world, and demand is growing.The pumps are used for those with Type 1 diabetes, which accounts for about 5 to 10 percent of all diabetes cases and used to be called "juvenile diabetes." The more common form is Type 2, which is often linked to obesity and more often affects adults.

Insulin pumps are the size of a cell phone and worn on a belt or pocket. They send insulin into the body through a plastic tube with a small tip that inserts under the skin and is taped in place. They cost about $6,000 and supplies run $250 a month. Most health insurers cover much of the cost.

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Posted In: Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Liability

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MRSA is a staph becteria which has been in the news in recent years as serious problems have been reported in hospitals and other health care facilities. Staph bacteria, even those that aren't resistant to antibiotics, have long caused serious infections.

In the 1960s, the first reports surfaced of staph infections that had stopped responding to the antibiotic methicillin. Over the decades, those strains have spread, and the germs have developed resistance to other drugs, largely in hospitals where they infect patients weakened by disease or made vulnerable through surgical wounds and catheters.

MRSA still poses the greatest threat in hospitals, where strains are usually genetically different and, because of antibiotic use, more difficult to kill than those circulating out in the community. About 85 percent of life-threatening, invasive MRSA infections involve people who have been hospitalized, lived in a nursing home or been treated in some other health care facility.

During the 1980s, doctors began finding cases of MRSA in people who hadn't spent time in health care settings. Unlike the strains found in hospitals, MRSA in the community tended to cause skin infections — pus-filled pimples and boils.

Community MRSA still responds to a wider range of antibiotics, and it is unusual for community infections to become life-threatening. However, a study reported last year that more life-threatening community infections occur than previously thought.

The study, estimated MRSA infections in health care facilities and the community killed nearly 19,000 Americans in 2005. Another 94,000 had life-threatening infections.

However, the study found that 85% of life-threatening MRSA infections involved people who have been infected while hospitalized or living in a nursing home. Only about 15 percent happened in the community.
People 65 and older are most likely to suffer invasive MRSA infections of all types, the study found. Black people had invasive MRSA at nearly twice the rate of whites.

The important thing to remember is that those who seek help from a doctor usually are successfully treated. One should not ignore these problems.

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice

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Victims of the wrongful death of their loved ones testified this week before Congress concerning adulterated supplies of Heparin. One of the largest suppliers of this drug, which is used in kidney dialysis and various other surgeries to prevent dangerous blood clots, is Baxter International, Inc. Not only did the victims of families who have been damaged by this product testify before Congress, representatives from Baxter were also subpoenaed by the Energy and Commerce Committee which is reviewing the Food and Drug Administration’s response to this scandal.

While the evidence is still unclear, it appears that the Heparin product manufactured by Baxter International, Inc. was derived from factories in China that had not been properly audited and inspected. There is also evidence that a particular sulfate product used in the manufacture of Heparin was deliberately substituted because it was less expensive to use than a safer sulfate ingredient. Regardless of the final results of Congress’ investigation, it was clear from victim testimony that the lack of oversight by Baxter relative to the activities of its foreign operations has lead to a tremendous amount of suffering for the victims’ families.

To date, 81 people have died from using contaminated Heparin. One gentleman who testified before Congress not only lost his wife but also his son who were undergoing kidney dialysis in Ohio. This man’s wife and son died within one month of each other. Thus, the wrongful deaths caused by this dangerous product clearly are deserving of congressional scrutiny so that other unwitting victims of products imported from abroad will be spared similar fates.

We have written before on this blog about dangerous products that harm the American public. This seems to be yet another example of where the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has failed the American public in failing to insure that medical supplies are safe for public use and consumption. Not only may Baxter International have failed the American public, the government itself in its oversight role, may have also contributed to these tragedies. Even though Baxter, which had supplied about half of the U. S. Heparin market recalled most of its products in February of this year, the fact remains that 81 deaths have occurred and tremendous suffering which could have been avoided has been experienced as a result of the failure of proper oversight for these dangerous products.

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Posted In: Dangerous Drugs , Products Liability , Torts , Wrongful Death

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The Association of American Medical Colleges has proposed that drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in nation’s medical colleges. The Association has begun to write a model policy governing relationships between the schools and industry. While medical schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.

The rules would apply only to medical schools, but they could have enormous influence across medicine, according to medical educators.
Drug companies spend billions of dollars each year trying to influence doctors. Medical schools, with prominent professors and new trainees are attractive marketing targets.

For decades companies have provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.

A group of doctors criticized these practices in a 2006 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, and said that medical schools should ban them.

The proposed rules would require that schools set up centralized systems for accepting free drug samples and suggest that schools audit independently accredited medical education seminars given by faculty. The rules would apply to faculty even when off-duty or away from school.

Speakers’ fees and drug samples are a major part of the drug and device industry’s marketing operations, and many medical school professors have resisted efforts to restrict them.

These efforts to remove the influence of industry marketing from medical decision making shoiuld be applauded.

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Posted In: Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Liability

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Medical Malpractice takes many forms. In this article, we write about a unusual but dangerous medical error that can cause lifetime consequences for an innocent patient.

Though most everyone knows that sharing needles is unsafe in today’s world, sharing or reusing syringes can be equally dangerous. During any health related injection, a tiny amount of blood is often inadvertently drawn back into a syringe. Most of the time, that does not make a difference because it is common practice to use a new syringe and a new needle for subsequent injections. But in some cases, those involved may change the needle but not the syringe. They then use that syringe to draw more medicine from a vial. By doing so, the small amount of blood that may have been in the dirty syringe inadvertently flows back into the vial contaminating the entire vial.

We read recently in an article in USA Today about a lady by the name of Evelyn McKnight who has founded a patient advocacy group entitled HONOReform. Ms. McKnight apparently was infected with Hepatitis C which has caused her to be chronically fatigued and has compromised the quality of her life significantly. Apparently, she was infected with this disease when someone reused a syringe even though a clean needle was used during a chemotherapy treatment for her cancer. Quite literally, she went to a doctor to be healed but then came away with a life threatening illness. To keep that from happening elsewhere, she has founded the patient advocacy group HONOReform, that uses education and advocacy to try to stop the kind of medical errors by which blood borne diseases can be transmitted. Unfortunately for Ms. McKnight and others who have been given Hepatitis C from unclean syringes, there is no universal cure for the disease. 20% immediately develop acute infections and symptoms ranging from jaundice to fatigue, however, 75 to 85 percent may develop a chronic infection but may not exhibit symptoms for many years. Some may die of liver disease.

Because dangerous medical errors such as the reuse of a syringe can pass on blood borne infections, the work of patient advocacy groups like HONOReform obviously is important in educating the public and the medical community about this form of medical malpractice. In today’s world, it is inexcusable to reuse syringes because deadly diseases can be passed on to the innocent. One would think that this lesson would have been learned with respect to syringes but apparently there are still those who believe that only needles need to be replaced. This type of medical error can have lifelong and profound consequences as is reflected in Ms. McKnight’s case. We applaud the work of HONOReform in addressing it.

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice

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Our personal injury practice reflects pretty much what we see in national statistics concerning the rising rate of motorcycle injuries and accidents. We are seeing more and more clients seriously injured in motorcycle accidents. In large part, this is primarily due to increased numbers of motorcycle riders. Motorcycle registrations have more than doubled since 1997. In 2006, almost 6.5 million motorcycles were registered in this country. The good news is that the number of deaths and injuries resulting from these 6.5 million motorcycles is no greater than the number of deaths when 5 million registrations existed in 1986. The bad news is that even though motorcycles make up 2% of the vehicles on the road, they also make up close to 10% of vehicular accidents.

If you ride a motorcycle in this country, you are 37 times more likely to die in a crash than someone in a passenger car. Even though the number of motorcycle registrations have gone up dramatically, which would explain why motorcycle deaths have more than doubled in the past 10 years, motorcycle accidents kill more Americans each year than all those caused by much higher profile plane crashes, ship disasters, and railway accidents combined.

With increasing gas prices, we are likely to see a continuing rise in motorcycle usage. While many states require that motorcyclists wear helmets, in some cases, a helmet would make no difference. Nonetheless, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that between 1984 and 2000, 19,000 motorcyclists were saved by their helmets. These statistics are, of course, hard to quantify on a case by case basis but given the lack of protection that a motorcyclist has when involved in an accident, it seems a safe bet that helmets do matter. What matters even more, however, is motorcycle safety and rider education. Widespread motorist awareness campaigns educate the general motoring public to be aware of motorcycles. Increasing public awareness campaigns will be needed as more and more people register motorcycles in view of rising gas costs. Regrettably, our personal injury lawyers will probably continue to see a rise in the number of those that walk through our firm’s doors who have been seriously injured and/or who have had family members die as a result of their motorcycle usage. In short, the more people that ride, the more accidents that will occur and the more tragedies that will be suffered. As always, the operative watch words for motorcycle riders remains the same: Safety, Safety and Safety.

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Posted In: Automobile Accidents , Torts , Wrongful Death

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Portable defibrillators are becoming common equipment at youth athletic event. We have written in the past explaining how theses devices, also known as AEDs, help restart the heart in the event of an accident.

A recent news report relates that last month in Jacksonville, Fla. A high school lacrosse goalie was hit in the chest by a lacrosse ball causing his heart to stop beating. And, it happened again just last week at another lacrosse game in Raleigh, N.C.

Researchers say that over the last 10 years, on average, one young athlete a month has been dying because of blows to the chest which affect the heart..

In both the Jacksonville and Raleigh episodes, the use of an AED saved the lives of the young athletes.

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Posted In: Torts

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Lasik vision correction surgery has been performed in the United States for almost ten years. It has become a massive business with specialized centers opening in most markets and advertising freedom from glasses. However, not everyone's a good candidate and some suffer life-changing side effects — lost vision, dry eye, night-vision problems.

Today, the Food and Drug Administration is beginning a major new effort to see if warnings about the risks are strong enough. The FDA estimates that approximately 5 percent of patients are dissatisfied, but be more specific due to the lack of data. The FDA is now working with eye surgeons in a major study expected to enroll hundreds of Lasik patients to try to better understand who has bad outcomes and exactly what their complaints are.

About 7.6 million Americans have undergone some form of laser vision correction, including the Lasik procedure. In performing the Lasik procedure, doctors cut a flap in the cornea — the clear covering of the eye— aim a laser underneath it and zap to reshape the cornea for sharper sight.

The vast majority, 95 percent, of patients see more clearly after Lasik. However, some patients have severe complications that leave poor vision. Other side effects, such as dry eye can range from an annoyance to so severe that people suffer intense pain and need surgery to retain what little moisture their eyes form.

Dry eye is common even among people who never have eye surgery, and increases as people age. Solomon says 31 percent of Lasik patients have some degree of it before the surgery, and that about 5 percent worsen afterwards.

The FDA has long known of those side effects, and thus for years has a Web site with warnings for Lasik patients and required that doctors give every potential patient a brochure outlining risks..

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice

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Wal-Mart announced this week that it will soon stop selling baby bottles made with the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The retailer said that it was immediately stopping sales of baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, food containers and water bottles made with BPA in its Canadian stores. There has been speculation that Canada’s health department would soon declare the chemical unsafe.

On Monday the U.S. National Toxicology Program released a draft report that expressed concern that BPA, which is used to make plastic, could cause behavioral changes in infants and children and trigger the early onset of puberty in females.

Wal-Mart has sold BPA-free baby bottles for several years alongside bottles with the chemical. But yesterday was the first time the retailer indicated it would convert its entire U.S. stock.

Other retailers are also stocking products made without the chemical. A spokeswoman for Target said the chain began testing glass baby bottles in its stores in January. Babies R Us said its sales of glass bottles have increased fivefold since last spring.

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Posted In: Products Liability

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An article in the New England Journal of Medicine, warns that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.

The authors are proponents of the benefits of electronic patient records to improve care and help individuals make smarter health decisions. But their concern is that the medical profession and policymakers have not begun to understand the implications of companies like Microsoft and Google becoming the hosts for patient information in their data centers.

Today, most patient records remain within the health system. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is the main law that regulates personal data handling and patient privacy.

Microsoft and Google have recently begun offering web-based personal health records. But as noted in the article, these companies are not bound HIPPA.

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Posted In: Medical Malpractice

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Our firm concluded a wrongful death case this year on behalf of the family of a 40-year old man who was killed when a bicycle he was riding became entangled in loose utility wires which completely obstructed a city sidewalk adjacent to Peachtree Road in Atlanta. The injuries this young man received in the accident cost him his life. Subsequent thereto, our firm filed a lawsuit against the City of Atlanta for negligent maintenance of the City’s sidewalk and against two utility companies for their alleged involvement in failing to properly maintain the hazardous utility wires which obstructed the city sidewalk at the time of the incident. While the case was resolved by means of compromise, obviously, the pain from the incident still remains with the family because of the untimely and wrongful death of this young man. Notwithstanding this terrible tragedy to the family, however, as we have seen in other similar tragic cases, good can emerge from bad particularly where good people work together to accomplish common goals.

In late March of this year, a pedestrian advocacy group in Atlanta by the name of PEDS (Pedestrians Educating Driver Safety) conducted a Scavenger Utility Wire Hunt in which volunteers were asked to spread out throughout Atlanta to look for detached wires or cables that might block or obstruct city sidewalks. Thirty-five volunteers participated in this event and pictures were taken of more than 225 sites where loose or detached wires or cables blocked sidewalks. Once these pictures were in hand, PEDS digitally sent them to the City’s Department of Public Works and has asked for a meeting not only with them but also with representatives from the various utility companies that conduct business in Atlanta.

As one of the victim’s brothers stated to the press, “It’s all about accountability. If we can get the utilities and the City to take a more proactive approach to finding and fixing these dangerous sites, [my brother] will not have died in vain.” One person’s unnecessary and preventable death is one too many. Hopefully, this joint effort by volunteers pursuing a common goal can bring about good and other potential victims spared the fate suffered by our client’s family.

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Posted In: Wrongful Death

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