Posts by Michael Phelan
Takata Bankruptcy Follows Airbag Debacle
Airbag manufacturer Takata’s airbags have been linked to multiple deaths caused by exploding shrapnel, which prompted the largest automobile recall in U.S. history. Unable to weather this storm, Takata Americas, the U.S. division of Takata Corp., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware over the weekend, and the parent company filed for protection under…
Read MoreNJ Consolidates Stryker LFIT V40 Hip Implant Cases
The New Jersey Supreme Court granted a motion to consolidate state court lawsuits in connection with Stryker LFIT Anatomic Cobalt Chromium V40 femoral heads filed against Howmedica Osteonics Corp, a division of Stryker Corp. The consolidated multi-county litigation (MCL) has been assigned for centralized case management to Bergen County Superior Court Judge Rachelle Harz, who…
Read MoreINVOKANA: the risks keep growing
Invokana belongs to a newer class of Type 2 diabetes drugs called sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors . Instead of metabolizing blood sugar, which is how insulin and other Type-2 diabetes drugs work, Invokana, by design, stops glucose from being reabsorbed into the blood and converted into an energy source that the body can use.…
Read MoreRoundup Cover Up?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization’s (WHO), assessed the carcinogenicity of the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate currently has the highest global production volume of all herbicides and is the key ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup. See IARC Monograph Vol. 112 (March 20, 2015).…
Read MoreTractor Trailer Trucks Must be Regulated
It should come as no surprise that stakeholders in the trucking industry – trucking companies, freight brokers, shippers, trucking associations and insurance companies – spend a lot of money lobbying Congress to de-regulate the trucking industry. And, unfortunately, they have been succeeding. These special interest groups have blocked Congress from raising the minimum required insurance…
Read MoreVirginia Trucking Companies Indicted for Hours of Service Conspiracy
The primary mission of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is to reduce injuries and deaths due to large truck crashes and bus crashes. One important way in which FMCSA pursues this goal is to regulate the number of hours that truck drivers can drive continuously a without rest. Obviously, fatigued driving is a…
Read MoreTalcum Powder as a Cause of Mesothelioma
In October 2014, the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH) published a study in which a specific brand of talc was analyzed at four different labs.The study found that talcum powder coming from asbestos contaminated mines can find its way into consumer talcum powder that can be inhaled during use and cause or…
Read MoreStryker Accolade TMZF and LFIT V40 Chrome/Cobalt Hip Replacement Defects
Stryker hip stems made of TMZF are proving to be very problematic. The most commonly implanted Stryker hip stem has been the Stryker Accolade. When a Stryker LFIT V40 Chrome/Cobalt head is placed on a Stryker Accolade TMZF system, the same combination of mixed metals exists as the combination that caused such problems with the…
Read MoreMyths About E-Cigarette Explosions
E-cigarettes contain a heating element that heats up and vaporizes a liquid solution. The power source for the heating element are lithium-ion batteries. Many of these batteries are made in China. There are a couple of major myths about e-cigarette battery explosions. Myth #1 – The explosion was the consumer’s fault for carrying a loose…
Read MoreStockert 3T Heater-Cooler Lawsuit – Infectious Diseases
The Players: The Stockert 3T heater-cooler system is used to regulate the patient’s body temperature during cardioplegic surgeries that intentionally stop the patient’s blood flow. The Sorin group originally developed the Stockert 3T, so the device is sometimes called the Sorin 3T. Sorin merged with another European medical device manufacturer in 2015 to become LivaNova,…
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