USA-Legal Help Center – Lawyer Blog

Finally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will reconsider its decision to allow marketing metal-on-metal hip replacement surgery implants. This comes after rising alarms from physicians and patients about the likelihood of hip implant injury due to such defective devices.

The problem is that some medical devices used in hip replacement surgery are comprised of a metal-on-metal ball-in-socket joint which grinds against itself in the body. This shaves away minute particles of cobalt and chromium into the body and bloodstream.

Those metals are toxic, and their impact on the body’s bones and tissues can be enormous. Victims can suffer severe pain as well as lessened mobility — the very things they probably hoped to eliminate by getting hip replacment surgery.

Instead, thanks to manufacturers’ negligence, patients have suffered greatly and often must endure a correct revision surgery to fix the problem with a new implant. They also may have tiny bits of toxic metals in their urine or bloodstream.

Which defective medical devices are known to cause debilitating hip implant injuries? High on the list are those produced by DePuy, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. It has made and marketed metal-on-metal hip implants which can harm innocent Americans.

If you have had hip replacement surgery and are in great pain, how can you know if you’ve received a defective DePuy hip implant? First, ask your surgeon or physician, who definitely should have this information. So, too, should the hospital where the surgery was performed.

Then, if you or a loved one has suffered hip replacement surgery injury via a defective DePuy hip implant, you can fight back against these negligent manufacturers. You can pursue a hip implant lawsuit to recover your losses for medical costs, lost salary and the pain and suffering you endure.

To launch that process, alert the national attorney service of USA-LegalHelpCenter.com. It can provide you with an experienced defective medical device lawyer or attorney for your state. Simply submit the free case evaluation form on this Web page to get started.

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Americans across the country who were injured by a defective DePuy hip implant have reason to be hopeful about a prospective DePuy hip replacement surgery injury lawsuit. Johnson & Johnson, owner of DePuy Orthopaedics, has set aside $922 million — so far — to cover DePuy hip implant lawsuits in litigation and settlements.

Victims of DePuy and Johnson & Johnson’s negligence are legally entitled to seek financial compensation for such injuries via a DePuy lawsuit or hip implant lawsuit. But in order to get it, they’ll need a skilled and experienced hip replacement lawyer or defective medical device attorney for their state, as supplied by USA-LegalHelpCenter.com.

Johnson & Johnson, it’s just been learned, set aside the $922 million for DePuy lawsuits in the fourth quarter of last year. In August of last year, Johnson & Johnson issued a DePuy recall of its failed hip implant devices. These two actions underscore the failure of the hip implant and the reality of DePuy and Johnson & Johnson’s negligence.

DePuy sold 93,000 hip implants around the world, including 37,000 in the United States, starting in 2003. Researchers estimate that as many as 12 to 13 per cent of those 37,000 Americans have or will suffer from a defective hip implant.

This can come in the form of metallosis, or toxic metal poisoning, when DePuy’s metal-on-metal hip implant grinds against itself and scrapes away tiny bits of toxic chromium and cobalt. Such toxic metals can enter the bloodstream and accumulate around bones and sensitive tissues, causing inflammation and pain.

If you received one of two DePuy hip implants in 2003 or later, you may have such a DePuy hip implant injury. Those devices are the DePuy ASR Hip Resurfacing System and the DePuy ASR XL Acetabular System.

Perhaps since your surgery you’ve had worse pain and less mobility than before hip replacement surgery. These are clear signs that your DePuy hip implant has failed and must be replaced. Such corrective surgery or “revision” surgery can be even more complex, difficult and painful than the original hip implant surgery, and that is the responsibility of DePuy and Johnson & Johnson.

Consumers in good faith purchased a defective DePuy hip implant which was supposed to last them for up to 20 years. Instead, many DePuy implant victims have had their hip implant fail within a short time after surgery, or at least within the first two years after hip replacement surgery.

Johnson & Johnson knew such hip implant injuries could occur, yet continued selling its defective hip implant anyway, all in the name of profits. Johnson & Johnson finally yanked its defective hip implant from the market in Australia in 2009, but it waited another year, until 2010, to do so in America, content to continue selling its defective product for as long as possible.

Now victims can fight back via a DePuy hip implant lawsuit waged by the experienced lawyers and attorneys of national attorney group USA-LegalHelpCenter.com. Simply submit the free case review form on the Web page, and a USA legal representative will respond promptly to help you assess your DePuy hip implant lawsuit case.

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Across America, thousands of innocent victims are suffering because a giant corporation failed them by providing a defective medical device. That corporation is Johnson & Johnson, whose DePuy Orthopaedics has made and marketed the ASR Hip System used in hip replacement surgery for the past seven years.

This hip implant has proven to be harmful in many ways, including the fact that the metal ball and socket joint, which replaces a human hip, quickly erodes and spews tiny particles of chromium and cobalt into the body. This can damage adjacent bones and tissue and can cause intense pain to victims.

Such victims then need another surgery, or a revision surgery, to compensate for the failed surgery using a defective medical device. Such victims also may need a hip replacement surgery lawsuit to cover their costs, from medical bills to lost wages to pain and suffering.

To wage such a fight, USA-LegalHelpCenter.com can provide an experienced and knowledgeable defective products attorney or lawyer for victims in all 50 states. And that may be what it takes for victims to recover their financial losses.

For its part, DePuy would rather that its victims deal with DePuy alone, by calling a “help line” and offering to be subjected to revision surgery at DePuy’s cost. But this “help line” can involve conversations being taped and later used against victims in order to mitigate costs to DePuy, should they later choose to proceed with a hip implant lawsuit.

Victims of a defective hip replacement implant are better able to serve their own interests by contacting instead a defective products lawyer or defective medical device attorney with USA-LegalHelpCenter.com. Then they can fully explore pursuing the financial compensation to which they are legally entitled after such an injury.

Such injuries have occurred since 2003, when the DePuy hip replacement device first was placed on the market. The device was supposed to last for up to 15 years, but for many patients it failed in the first few months, necessitating further surgery.

This year DePuy belatedly issued a recall of its defective devices, which number about 93,000 worldwide and about 37,000 in the United States. But in order to “recall” a device implanted in the body of its victims, DePuy needs their cooperation in submitting to revision surgery.

Instead, victims from any of the 50 states first should alert a hip replacement surgery lawyer or personal injury attorney with USA-LegalHelpCenter.com. Simply submit the free case evaluation form on this Web page, and a legal representative will respond promptly to help you assess your prospects for a hip replacement surgery lawsuit. Such a lawsuit can cover not only the cost of your revision surgery, but also your lost wages and your pain and suffering.

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The term “drug wars” seems to apply only to violent cartels and gangs that wage war against each other — and against society — while dealing in illegal drugs. But how many victims do these drug wars produce compared to other drug wars which kill just as surely?

We’re speaking of giant pharmaceutical corporations which inflict untold damage on innocent Americans via defective drugs. These legal products profit them by billions of dollars before they are hit with damages of only millions of dollars.

For them, it’s a trade-off — and all about profits. They often know their product is dangerous to many people, yet market and sell it anyway so they can make unspeakable profits while innocent Americans die.

Some of the worst instances lately have included the antidepressant Paxil, produced by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK. Paxil has been proven to cause birth defects in the infants of women who took the defective drug during pregnancy — defects which can include ailments of the brain, heart, lungs and other vital organs. These injuries can necessitate surgery, or even repeated surgeries, to attempt to correct.

GSK has reaped billions of dollars in profits on the backs of Americans who unsuspectingly take its defective drug Paxil. In fact, in 2008 alone GSK made $1.2 billion in profits off Paxil, though that was just 2 per cent of its total profits for that year.

Another dangerously defective drug is Accutane, laced with Isotretinoin. Created by Roche, a pharmaceutical giant based in Switzerland, this acne medication — which only should be used as a last resort — may help ease blemishes, but it can cause serious injuries. These can include IBDs, or inflammatory bowel diseases, known as Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease. Both are lifelong and debilitating, often mandating major surgery to address.

The list goes on and on, as Americans increasingly are conditioned by marketers and in some cases even their own physicians to think that a pill can solve everything — when in truth, that pill may come with a very high price tag, sometimes even costing your own life.

But Americans don’t have to take such punishment without a fight. Instead, they can engage a skilled and experienced defective drug lawyer or attorney for any of the 50 states to press a defective drug lawsuit. Just submit the free case evaluation form on this website and a legal representative will respond promptly to help you assess your defective drug injury case.

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Chances are you aren’t worried about your own driver distractions. After all, you’ve made cell phone calls or read text messages or searched for a napkin after spilling food while driving countless times — and you haven’t an accident.

Yet.

That’s the key word in the equation — “yet.” But not having had a cell phone accident — yet –  doesn’t mean distracted driving won’t cause one. In fact, distractions can be fatal. Just ask families of the 6,000 Americans killed in distracted driving car crash accidents per year, or the half a million persons injured.

Or ask the New York air traffic controller who was found to be making a personal call while juggling flight routes, and the distraction proved fatal. The controller was talking with a friend on a headset when crucial errors occurred, and as a result, a plane collided with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River and nine people died.

The same thing happens on our roads every day. But it didn’t use to — not like now. For decades, millions of Americans made phone calls when it was prudent and time to do so. They didn’t interrupt a delightful dinner to field a needless call about what their kid was watching on TV. They didn’t drive with one hand on the wheel while they dialed a neighbor to ask if it was trash night. And they didn’t do their jobs while keeping one ear on a cell phone and half their thoughts on their duty.

But now, Americans are addicted to cell phones just as surely as junkies are hooked on drugs. They call and talk endlessly, which means the things they’re supposed to be doing otherwise — such as driving a car or supervising air traffic, both of which are vital tasks where inattention can mean death — get neglected.

How many deaths, and how many tragedies, will it take for a nation to wake up and recognize the enormously serious problem in its midst? Needless multi-tasking isn’t worth the risk to you, your loved ones or other people on the roads, or in the air. Some things need our full attention. But too many such things aren’t getting it.

We get it at USA Legal Help Center, and we’ll help if you or a family member suffers harm due to a driver’s negligence and driving distractions.

Meanwhile, ask yourself: How many phone calls have you ever made which were life-or-death matters? Chances are it’s been zero. So don’t turn a routine call into a life-or-death car accident. Hang up and drive.

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Drivers of the barreling behemoths known as an 18 wheeler, big rig, semi truck, diesel truck or tractor trailer aren’t that different from those in far smaller cars. That is to say, too many of them are guilty of inattention, when all it takes is a moment to cause a traffic accident fatality or serious injury.

Large trucks have caused many of those lately, including four deaths in a horrific Phoenix, AZ crash when a dump truck driver — who admits he was doing paperwork while driving — slammed into nine motorcycles which had stopped at a red light. Just days earlier, an 18 wheeler in Kentucky careened into a van, killing 11 members of a church.

Also recently, a trucker crashed into a woman’s car when its driver was watching streaming pornography on a laptop computer; a big rig sparked a 50-car pileup in Wyoming; a tractor trailer ran into the rear of a Greyhound Bus in Bowling Green, KY; and a truck smashed into the back of a van in Indiana.

As with car wrecks, the cause of many of these large truck accidents may have been driver distractions, from paperwork and laptops to cell phones and texts. An 80,000 pound truck traveling at 70 miles per hour can go the length of a football field in the time it takes its driver to read a text, and even then such huge vehicles need more time and space to stop than smaller, lighter cars. It’s called physics.

In short, drivers of diesel trucks, tractor trailers, big rigs, semi trucks and 18 wheelers bear a larger responsibility on our roads, due to their larger vehicles which cause such greater damage. Indeed, while only 3 per cent of vehicles on America’s roads are big rigs, they are involved in far more traffic accident fatalities: 12 per cent of those nationally, 10 per cent of those in Illinois, and 15 per cent of those in Missouri.

Long-haul truck drivers also may not get enough sleep, and when they do sleep, they may suffer from a condition called sleep apnea. Such sleep disruption makes them more tired when they’re behind the wheel.

Anything which reduces a trucker’s awareness and alertness for even a second can cause a truck crash that kills and injures horribly. No mere diversion is worth that. Truckers must hold themselves accountable for driving with greater caution, because too many lives are at stake.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a diesel truck driver or other big rig drivers, alert a semi truck accident lawyer or tractor trailer accident lawyer with USALegalHelpCenter.com. We can provide you with an 18 wheeler accident lawyer or diesel truck accident lawyer in any of America’s 50 states.

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For decades, millions of Americans have trusted Japanese automaker Toyota. They’ve bought Toyota’s cars and have made Toyota rich. And how has Toyota repaid them? With treachery. How so? Because Toyota knew that its cars had stuck accelerator defects in 2009, and it didn’t recall them until forced to do so by the U.S. government in 2010.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said as much this week when he revealed that it took considerable pressure from the government before Toyota would recall millions of cars in order to fix their gas pedals.

Read more…

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Distracted drivers using cell phones to call or text killed about 6,000 Americans in car crash accidents last year. And more and more states are passing laws banning texting or calling when behind the wheel. Yet some results of such bans are not encouraging.

According to the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), affiliated with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), no reduction in crashes occurred in New York, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C. after bans on drivers using handheld cell phones took effect. This was based on assessing insurance claims for car crash damages.

Why? That’s a good question, since the link between cell phones and traffic deaths has been clearly established. One conclusion could be that fewer drivers in those states chose to heed the law and continued texting and talking, anyway.

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America’s seamen face physically demanding tasks each day, and for that they deserve our respect. Yet when such seamen are injured in American waters,  they don’t always get the financial compensation they deserve.

That may be because they accept a quick cash settlement from their employer that’s not nearly enough. It also may be because they rely on Workers Compensation benefits, which can be marginal.

A far better source of recovery can be gained under the Jones Act, a law passed in 1920 to protect the rights of American seamen. The Jones Act provides more far-ranging recovery to seamen who are injured on the job, or to their survivors if they are killed.

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Bruce Westbrook Jones Act, maritime injury

As the holiday season looms, drunk drivers lurk. They can come from anywhere — a home, a bar, an office, a holiday party — and can strike just as unexpectedly, killing and maiming innocent Americans. And it’s all because they choose to drink and drive — a willful act of horrendous negligence which causes about 30 per cent of all USA traffic fatalities per year.

Indeed, drunk driving accidents have killed more than half a million Americans since 1982. That’s more Americans than have been killed by foreign enemies in all wars since and including World War II.

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