Author Archive

Rite-Aid Wrong Again?

June 20th, 2009. By janem

 

Rite-Aid knows it’s not so much the title you are given, but the work you do. So has the retail chain weighed the odds and decided it is more lucrative to settle a class action suit brought about by approximately 250 assistant managers than to pay them overtime?

 

 

And don’t they read the news? Staples recently paid $2.5 million to assistant store managers who claimed they were illegally classified as exempt and therefore owed overtime pay, and in 2002, RadioShack agreed to pay about $30 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former RadioShack store managers and assistant managers.

 

Rite-Aid has been wrong before. Last year, an Oakland attorney filed a suit against Rite-Aid on behalf of more than 1,000 managers and in 2001 those managers (handled by another attorney) were part of a $25 million overtime pay settlement approved by a San Diego Superior Court judge.

 

If and when this latest overtime class action goes to trial, it is speculated that Rite-Aid, as second-time defendants that willfully violated the California Labor Law, might also be slapped with punitive damages. Cha-ching!

 

Tags: Rite-Aid, Rite-Aid Overtime
Posted in Employment | 1 Comment »

Air France Flight Mystery Deepens

June 4th, 2009. By janem

On May 27, five days before Air France Flight 447 crashed into the ocean, Momento24 reported that an Air France flight from Argentina to Paris was delayed before departing after the airline received a bomb threat over the phone at the airport offices. Police and firemen inspected the plane but found nothing. Coincidence?

According to the Washington Post (June 3), Aviation safety analysts are continuing to play down lightning as the force that tragically caused the plane crash, explaining that aircraft routinely encounter such strikes. Still, a struggle with a “complex of thunderstorms” is the probable theory.

  

But why did the pilot fly through the thunderstorms? “It’s not like we didn’t know that flying through a thunderstorm was a bad thing,” said William R. Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation. “We’ve known this for decades — that thunderstorms need to be avoided at all costs…The question is why did the pilot have to fly though this thunderstorm and is there anything we could have done that would have made the aircraft more survivable?”

 

The cause of the plane crash is still unknown…

Tags: plane crash
Posted in Emerging Issues, Personal Injury | No Comments »

Fentanyl Theft

June 2nd, 2009. By janem

The potent and addicting drug Fentanyl is in the news again. This time a former nurse from Boulder, CO admitted to stealing the pain med for up to 290 patients in a Boulder hospital and replacing it with tap water or saline solution.  Fentanyl abuse has been known in the health sector since at least 2004.

 

In August 2006 a wave of fentanyl-related overdose deaths made the painkiller headlines as the newest pharmaceutical to hit the streets, and with it came a rising demand. Two nurses fed that demand and both were convicted for illegal possession of fentanyl. (It makes you wonder how many people in the medical profession haven’t been caught.) No wonder fentanyl is the drug of choice: it has been estimated at roughly 100 times more potent than morphine.  Consequently it has also been associated with many overdose deaths. Isn’t it time this drug was removed from the market?

Tags: Fentanyl, Fentanyl Abuse
Posted in Drugs/Medical | No Comments »

Is OSP Risk A Colonoscopy Deterrent?

May 28th, 2009. By janem

It’s uncomfortable and worrisome enough having to go through screening for colon cancer through colonoscopy—which is extremely important in identifying and treating the disease. Now add one more concern to deter people from getting the procedure: Oral Sodium Phosphate (OSP) as a bowel cleanser has been associated with acute kidney injury. C.B. Fleet Company  announced a voluntary recall of its OTC products: Fleet(R) Phospho-soda(R) and Fleet(R) Phospho-soda(R) EZ-Prep(R) Bowel Cleansing System, and the FDA is slapping a black box warning on other OSPs, as well as recommending that only prescription OSPs be used by patients for bowel cleansing prior to undergoing colonoscopy.

 

Researchers set out to determine exactly which parts of the colonoscopy process deterred patients from getting the procedure and, you guessed it, not wanting to take the bowel prep ranked as the No. 1 deterrent. But all OSPs are not created equally; for example, one report says that NutraPrep did the job just as well, if not better than OSPs. And it isn’t associated with kidney injury. So if you’re scheduled for a colonoscopy, ask your health provider about alternative bowel cleansers.

Tags: Colonoscopy, Oral Sodium Phosphate, OSP
Posted in Emerging Issues | No Comments »

Add Stress to Raptiva Side Effects

May 23rd, 2009. By janem

When it comes to a drug like Raptiva, the risks most certainly outweigh the benefits. On its extensive list of side effects—including a brain damage disease called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) that is lethal—the drug company should add STRESS. I’ve talked with several people and one nurse in particular, who took this psoriasis drug for a few years before noticing any side effects. None of the psoriasis sufferers I spoke with have been diagnosed with PML, but not a day goes by that they aren’t fearful. And because the disease is rare, not much is known about it. Gloria, the nurse I spoke with, said that much of the medical community hasn’t put 2 and 2 together. In Gloria’s case she was hospitalized for neurological problems. ” The doctors couldn’t say that Raptiva was the direct cause, but they didn’t rule it out either,” she said.

Tags: PML, Psoriasis, Raptiva
Posted in Drugs/Medical | No Comments »