All news posts from April 01, 2002 to April 30, 2002

A popular Northeastern supermarket chain will stop carrying the controversial pain medication OxyContin in its pharmacies due to an increasing number of robberies involving the drug. A spokesperson for Stop & Shop, which has over 300 stores in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, said in

A recent report in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine suggests that doctors exposed to mercury-containing dental fillings may increase their risk of developing kidney and memory problems. Researchers at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland examined nearly 200 dentists and discovered they had fou

A Florida teenager who was wrongly accused of murder by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office two years ago settled a civil rights lawsuit with the city yesterday for $775,000. Officers arrested Brenton Butler, 17, in May 2000 and charged him in the robbery and murder of Georgia tourist Mary Ann Stephens. Butler, an Afri

Northwest Airlines settled a racial discrimination lawsuit last week when the company agreed to pay $280,000 to twelve minority employees stationed at Dulles International Airport. The suit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleged the workers were regularly subjected to racially offensive

New Yorkers were rocked yesterday by an explosion in the basement of an 11-story building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. At least 40 people were injured, 12 critically, in the blast which scattered glass and debris onto West 19th Street between the Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue. Investigat

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) say a freight train involved in Tuesday's fatal accident outside of Los Angeles may have failed to heed a red warning light before colliding with a commuter train. NTSB chairwoman Marion Blakey told reporters Wednesday that investigators had ruled out

An anonymous phone call recently led to one of the largest lump-sum settlements in a medical malpractice case in Massachusetts state history. In January 1997 at five weeks old, Leyda Uluan was admitted to Columbia Metro West Hospital in Framingham for a routine operation on her bellybutton. During the surgery, Uluan

A malfunctioning signal light may have caused yesterday's fatal train wreck outside of Los Angeles according to officials with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Although a spokesperson for the NTSB said it is still too early in the investigation to determine the exact cause of the accident, investigator

A government panel of scientists and doctors assembled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended yesterday the return of the gastrointestinal drug Lotronex. Since the drug was pulled from the market in November 2000, GlaxoSmithKline, Lotronex's maker, and the FDA have received thousands of letters fro

Environmental activist group The Sierra Club announced yesterday that it has filed suit against Tyson Foods for the failure to clean up waste from four chicken farms in Kentucky. According to a Sierra Club spokesperson, the chicken producer is also releasing more than the allotted 100 pounds of ammonia per day from th

Two people died and approximately 265 others were injured this morning when a mile-long Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train crashed into a Metrolink commuter train about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Several passengers are now in critical condition at local Orange County hospitals. Over seventy-five commu

Pharmaceutical maker GlaxoSmithKline is seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reintroduce the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) drug Lotronex. The gastrointestinal drug was recalled in November 2000 after FDA investigators discovered that the use of Lotronex could result in ischemic colitis

The families of two patients who died earlier this year from complications extending from liver transplant surgery have filed wrongful death lawsuits against Mount Sinai Hospital. Michael Hurewitz, 57, and Rabbi Jeffrey Wartenberg, 62, died in January. Hurewitz passed away three days after donating part of his liver

Kansas City pharmacist Robert Courtney, who pled guilty to twenty Federal counts of drug tampering in February, has admitted to diluting over seventy types of medications, according to investigators with the FBI. Originally, Courtney told authorities that he diluted the chemotherapy drugs Taxol and Gemzar in order to

A new study conducted by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that arthritis drugs such as Vioxx and Celebrex may increase a user's risk of suffering a heart attack. Lead scientist Dr. Garret Fitzgerald says the drugs may cause a chemical imbalance that prompts blood clots. Although the study examine

A jury awarded $550,000 yesterday to a white California police officer who alleged he was the victim of reverse discrimination. Lt. Ron Wood claimed Inglewood City Council members intentionally passed him over for promotion because of his race. The council, made up mostly of African-Americans, chose a black officer f

Four people were killed and close to 160 others were injured yesterday when an Amtrak Auto Train derailed along a rural stretch of track in central Florida. According to investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a track misalignment may have caused the Amtrak engineer to suddenly initiate an

Public interest groups and anti-smoking organizations won a small battle yesterday in the war against the legitimacy of filtered cigarettes when tobacco company Star Scientific Inc. announced it would stop labeling its products as "light" or "ultralight". A spokesperson for the Chester, VA manufacturer told health off

Dozens of protestors representing several public interest groups were joined by supporting members of Congress and concerned citizens at a rally on Capitol Hill yesterday to oppose the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. In February, the Department of Energy recommended that over 77,000 tons of nuclear waste be dump

According to a recent investigation into the safety of blood transfusions, fourteen Northern California patients have been diagnosed with transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI). The study, conducted by Dr. Patricia Kopko of BloodSource in Sacramento, a regional blood center, was published in today's issue of th

A San Francisco Superior Court jury recently found Shell Oil, Tosco Corporation and Lyondell Co., formerly Arco, responsible for polluting Lake Tahoe groundwater with the gasoline additive MTBE. The verdict ends a three year battle waged by the South Tahoe Public Utility District, which sued the oil corporations in 19

The mother of Charles Bishop, the 15-year-old pilot who committed suicide on January 5 by flying a stolen Cessna into a Tampa high rise, says Accutane is responsible for her son's death. Julie Bishop recently told reporters in an interview that because her son had shown no signs of depression before the crash, "the on

Less than a day after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a warning concerning the safety of 15-passenger vans, officials with consumer watchdog Public Citizen released a statement calling the alert ineffective. On Monday, the NHTSA reissued a cautionary warning to users of 15-passenger v

According to a new report released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the painkiller OxyContin may have contributed to 464 drug overdose deaths in the last two years. The new data comes months after the DEA launched an investigation into the drug's involvement in hundreds of overdose deaths across the country.

A Federal jury awarded nine former Connecticut firefighters $3.2 million last week in a rare reverse-discrimination lawsuit. The white and Hispanic firefighters alleged two top African-American officers, Chief Robert Dobson and Assistant Chief Billy Smith, intentionally blocked their promotions because of their race.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Roche Pharmaceuticals have imposed new restrictions on prescription policies for the acne drug Accutane. Because the medication has been linked to severe birth defects in newborns, the new rules, which went into effect Wednesday, are designed to prevent pregnant women fr

A California jury awarded six female supermarket employees $30 million in punitive damages last week in one of the largest sexual harassment verdicts ever recorded. The plaintiffs, former employees of Compton, California-based supermarket chain Ralph's Grocery Co., alleged that a store director subjected them to verba

Doctors with the Rotterdam Cancer Institute in the Netherlands recently told members of the American Association for Cancer Research that St. John's Wort, a popular herbal dietary supplement frequently used to treat depression, may interfere with the effects of a common cancer drug. Dr. Ron Mathijssen, who headed the

A group of parents in Georgia who claim their children developed autism from exposure to mercury in dental fillings and vaccines filed eleven lawsuits in an Atlanta court last week. Several major corporations and drug companies, including Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline and the American Dental Association (ADA), we

Less than a day after members of the American Association for Cancer Research were informed that St. John's Wort may interfere with the effects of a common cancer drug, researchers from Duke University Medical Center released a study indicating that the popular herbal supplement may be ineffective in treating cases of

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Pfizer Laboratories informed medical professionals last week that revisions have been made to the labeling for Pfizer's schizophrenia drug, Geodon. Also known as Ziprasidone, Geodon prolongs the heart's QT interval. According to the FDA and researchers working with Pfiz

New York state health department officials are investigating forty-one liver transplants that took place at Mount Sinai Hospital over the last two years. According to a spokesperson with the department, thirty-two of the operations resulted in deaths. The investigation was prompted by the January 2002 death of Mike H

A New York jury recently awarded $94.8 million to the mother of an eight-year-old boy who was the victim of medical malpractice. In June 1993, Milargros Jordan went into labor after only twenty-seven weeks of pregnancy. Upon her admittance to St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn, Jordan was treated with tocolyti

According to a new study conducted by officials with the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, the number of asbestos-related lawsuits could soon quadruple from the current level of 600,000. Researchers say up to 1.8 million additional claims may be filed, costing companies fighting asbestos litigation an extra $200 billi

A new report published in this month's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reveals that estrogen replacement therapy may increase a woman's risk of developing ovarian cancer. The study, headed by Dr. Tomas Riman of Falu Hospital in Sweden, examined 655 women aged 50 to 74 diagnosed with ovarian cance

Attorneys representing Monsanto Co. and Solutia Inc. in the now renowned Anniston, Alabama PCB contamination case are seeking the removal of Circuit Judge Joel Laird. The companies claim that Laird, who is currently considering whether to order a cleanup of the area, is biased against them. According to the 30-page r

A California jury recently awarded $578,700 to a woman who suffered severe injuries when a highway patrol officer's car collided with her vehicle. Attorneys representing the plaintiff, Diana Beverlin, alleged the defendant, Carl Thompson, fell asleep while on duty, causing the officer to lose control of his squad car.

The United States Supreme Court announced this week that it will review a $5.8 million jury award given to six former railroad workers who claimed their exposure to asbestos caused emotional distress. The former employees of Norfolk & Western Railway Co., which appealed the decision, stated in the original complaint t

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating several possible defects with Ford Motor Company's 2000 and 2001 Focus. The NHTSA initiated their inspection after reports of possible airbag malfunctions in both models emerged. Sixteen Ford Focus owners have suffered second and third degree

A Federal appeals court ordered a new trial last week in the case of Nancy Chu, a victim of the 1999 crash of American Airlines Flight 1420. The jetliner, with 145 people on board, crashed while landing during a thunderstorm at the Little Rock National Airport in Arkansas. Eleven people were killed, including the pil

An Illinois jury awarded $63.4 million recently to the victims of a horrific auto accident involving a tractor-trailer dump truck. On July 29, 2000, Robert Walton, an employee of Carter's Excavating and Grading in Chicago, accidentally left the 80,000-pound dump hauler section of the truck he was driving upright inste