Asbestos News Roundup: 7.30.10

July 30th, 2010. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. 

Asbestos Lawsuits

Madison County, IL: Twelve new asbestos lawsuits were filed in Madison County from June 14- 20. They include a suit filed by Donald Bauer of Texas who worked in maintenance and as a lineboy gassing airplanes, as well as a welder/fabricator from 1959 until 1992. His suit alleges that he developed asbestos mesothelioma through exposure to asbestos-containing products during his work. 

Another of the suits was filed by Lornalee Rapinchuk of Illinois, who was a clerk, production line worker and home health assistant at various locations from 1954 until 1985. Rapinchuck alleges that she has mesothelioma, and was secondarily exposed to asbestos fibers through her father, Thomas Manz, who worked as a construction worker and painter; through her brother, Charles Manz, who worked as a painter; and through her husband, Thomas G. Rapinchuk, who worked as a sheet metal worker, press operator, draftsman and engineering detailer from 1955 until 1995. 

In yet another asbestos suit, Gary Vogel of Kentucky claims the recently deceased John Vogel developed mesothelioma after his work at Sidney Kline from 1940 until 1941, at Clark Electric from 1941 until 1943, as a member of the U.S. Navy from 1943 until 1945, as a member of the Naval Ordinance from 1946 until 1976, at Beam and Colville Realtors from the late 1970s until the mid 1980s and at Al Vogel Constructing from the mid 1980s to the late 1980s. 

Asbestos Whistleblower Suit

Genesee County, MI: A whistleblower suit has been filed by a former Genesee County Read the rest of this entry »

Overdraft Fee Irony: Bank Causes Overdraft, Then Charges for it

July 29th, 2010. By Hunter West

File this one under “WTF”.

Devon Donovan was just a kid with some cash and a savings account. Cash from hours worked as a lifeguard, when she could have been swimming. Hours working as a babysitter, when she could have been hanging out with her friends. When she was given money for her birthday and at Christmas, she put it away to save towards school trips.

In other words, Devon was a kid who got it right. She didn’t spend wildly. She saved her money. And when she went off to college, she kept what she assumed was a couple of hundred bucks or so in that account to save for a rainy day.

That’s what savings accounts are for.

Instead, a bank unjustly robbed her of her savings and the message was clear: we don’t care about your laudable savings habits, we couldn’t give a flying fig that you’re a kid with the right idea and we couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge such good behavior.

Legally, Citizens Bank was in the clear. But morally, is it right? Is it fair for any bank to do what Citizens Bank did to a citizen who deserved better?

Citizens Bank decided, starting in 2007, that it would begin charging a monthly fee of $5 for balances under $500. The notification, as it turned out, was a small line at the bottom of a statement from November 21^st, 2006 referring to the new policy taking effect on January 8^th of the New Year.

There were also new limits on monthly transactions and fees for what were described as ‘excessive transactions.’

Obviously, Devon did not see the innocuous notification on her bank statement. Besides, she Read the rest of this entry »

What Good is BP Lifeline if it Doesn’t Rescue Victims?

July 29th, 2010. By AbiK

Here’s the situation—really a Catch-22. You’re stranded at sea, and a seemingly kind soul passes by on a boat, with a life buoy—you know, the type lifeguards use with that long rope. The kind soul tosses it out to you, reaching just beyond your shoulder like he’s been taught to do—and your countenance immediately turns from one of panic to one of relief…safe and secure that you’ll be able to remain afloat for a while and, although exhausted, enjoy the tow in toward the boat.

Ahhh…but funny thing happened on the way to the boat! The kind soul sort of, uh, dropped his end of the lifeline. Whoops! And guess what? Since you grabbed the line, you don’t have any other options for being saved other than saying some prayers.

Enter the current hell that BP oil spill victims are living right now. They can see that seemingly kind soul with the life buoy in hand (i.e., BP & Feinberg), but there’s also a ship way off on the horizon that may take days to get to them (i.e., litigation) and, if they turn toward litigation, Read the rest of this entry »

So Where are those Lilo Strip Search Pics?

July 27th, 2010. By LucyC

If it’s Tuesday, it must be time for a Lilo update! For those of you who do not follow TMZ on a regular basis—that would include me—Lilo is shorthand for Lindsay Lohan—God forbid we should use full names. (I wonder what birth certificates will read like in 10 years time or less). I digress. 

So Lilo (which could read as Lie Low—a cryptic source of good advice that has clearly not met with success) is, as predicted in my blog last week, remaining front and center in mainstream media during her incarceration at the infamous Lynwood Correctional Facility. 

The Lynwood facility has a couple of claims to fame, as it turns out, the first being that it’s housed celebutantes Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and others, for similar convictions that basically involve too much alcohol, reckless driving, skipping rehab, blah, blah, blah…we all know the script. 

But the jail’s second claim to fame is that it is involved in a class action lawsuit over allegations that prison staff illegally strip searched female inmates, strip and body cavity searches actually. Interestingly, a similar lawsuit was recently settled in favor of the plaintiffs, in Franklin County, MA.  

According to TMZ, the Lynwood suit alleges that the “female inmates are strip searched in Read the rest of this entry »

Depakote Studies Need Cautionary Notes for Pregnant Women

July 27th, 2010. By janem

Some reports put Depakote in a more favorable light over other epilepsy drugs because there isn’t an increased risk of self-harm of suicidal behavior as reported in similar epilepsy meds. But such reports can also be dangerous if read by a soon-to-be pregnant woman or worse, an already pregnant woman on Depakote, because they often neglect to mention that the drug has been linked to Depakote birth defects.

Or perhaps a physician will read these reports and focus only on Depakote and its link to depression, bypassing its association to birth defects.

For instance, a recent UK study (Neurology, July 27, 2010) revealed that those who took relatively new antiepileptic drugs with a higher risk of causing depression, (such as levetiracetam (Keppra), topiramate (Topamax) and vigabatrin (Sabril) were three times more likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide than those who weren’t taking any epilepsy medications. The researchers found that patients who took conventional epilepsy medications, such as divalproex (Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene) faced no increased risk of self-harm of suicidal behavior.

The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (July 29, 2010) reported that Depakote, when used as a mood stabilizer in adults with acute bipolar depression, decreases depression symptoms by at least 50 percent in at least one additional patient of every 10 patients who are given treatment instead of placebo. Again, no cautionary words for pregnant women.

Perhaps such studies should list alternative anti-epileptic medications.

But two studies presented at the beginning of July –the UK Epilepsy and Pregnancy Register and the European and International Registry of Antiepileptic Drugs in Pregnancy (EURAP)– found that Depakote and other valproate-based antiepileptic drugs were more than twice as likely to cause major congenital malformations when used by pregnant women than Tegretol (carbamazepine) and Lamictal (lamotrigine), with an overall risk of more than 6 percent.

The EURAP study set the odds of a Depakote birth defect at 9 percent. While those odds sound risky, a study done in 2006 found that about 20 percent of babies born to mothers taking Depakote suffered serious problems, as opposed to other drugs which only had rates anywhere between 1 and 10.7 percent. (Depakote was slapped with a black box warning in 2006). Clearly, the risk of Depakote outweighs the benefits, when it comes to the possibility of a pregnant woman suffering a seizure. After all, there are alternative and much safer medications.