BPA Paper Tigers: “Check The Receipts”

October 22nd, 2009. By Hunter West

As LawyersandSettlements revealed today there is a new and disturbing source of bisphenol-A (BPA). 

Move over, plastic water bottles. Enter the cash register and credit card receipt. Something we handle every day, keep in our wallets, pile on top of our desks…. 

According to John C. Warner, of the Warner Babcock Institute of Green Chemistry in Wilmington, Massachusetts BPA contained in electronic cash register and credit card receipts has been a problem for some time. 

It was about ten years ago when BPA first appeared on the radar screen, a time when Babcock was teaching green chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. His former career with Polaroid taught him a thing or two about thermal imagining papers, a subject he talked about in an interview with ScienceNews published on October 7^th. 

Manufacturers would coat a powdery layer of BPA onto one side of a piece of paper together with an invisible ink, he said. “Later, when you applied pressure or heat, they would merge together and you’d get color.” 

At the time, in the ’90s he thought little about the technology, he told ScienceNews, other than the fact he thought it was clever. However, when the health concerns about BPA began to emerge, he looked into it further—and he was in a perfect position to do so. As a professor of green chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, he had a ready gang Read the rest of this entry »

What the heck are Overdraft Fees & “NSF” on my bank statement?

October 21st, 2009. By Kristine B

There’s no shortage of financial news in the headlines lately, but the thing that might impact you the most is news about bank overdraft fees. So, that’s what we’re covering today in Pleading Ignorance. 

So, What Is an Overdraft Fee? 

Let’s back up first and answer what Overdraft Protection is. Banks either include or offer Overdraft Protection on their checking accounts to let you buy something with a check—or on your debit card—even if you don’t have enough money in your account to cover the transaction.

Ain’t that sweet? 

So let’s say you’re at the cash register trying to buy a coffee and a muffin for $4.00 with your debit card. But, you only have $3.50 in your account. Without overdraft protection, the bank would decline the transaction and you would probably suffer some momentary embarrassment. With overdraft protection, the transaction goes through and you can carry on with your life without any embarrassment about “Insufficient Funds.” (Oh, that “NSF”–that’s what it stands for: Insufficient Funds.)

Sounds good, right? Except that the $0.50 cents the bank has covered you for isn’t free. And the bank might not have told you that you were given Overdraft Protection and would be charged for it.

And guess what—the fee the bank charges you for covering that $0.50 cents is…drum roll please…an Overdraft Fee.

The thing about Overdraft Protection is that banks charge fees for overdraft transactions—the transactions that require more cash than you’ve got on hand—and those fees are high. Up to $35 per overdraft transaction (gulp). So, that $4.00 coffee and muffin suddenly becomes Read the rest of this entry »

Mesothelioma Treatment: How do you get there?

October 21st, 2009. By AbiK

I just read a post by a blogger named Deon Scott. He posts about asbestos a fair amount—you could say it’s his passion, though I’m sure he’d rather have a different passion: his father suffered and died from asbestos mesothelioma.

Deon posted recently about air transportation for mesothelioma patients—and it caught my eye. While asbestos exposure, and subsequently asbestos mesothelioma years later, can occur almost anywhere, it’s likely that it is more prevalent in areas where big manufacturing is. And often those areas are more rural or remote—not right near a big city—and particularly not near some of the larger and more well-known medical facilities that may be able to provide more treatment options for mesothelioma patients.

Given the statistics on mesothelioma—the American Cancer Society put the estimate for new mesothelioma cases in 2008 at 2,000 – 3,000 with an average survival rate of less Read the rest of this entry »

Environmental Bad Guys Sued over Katrina Property Damage

October 20th, 2009. By LucyC

Climate change litigation. Ever heard of it? If not, brace yourself, it’s coming to a courtroom near you in the not too distant future. 

A decision handed down October 16th 2009 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has reversed an earlier decision by a lower federal court which will allow a class action over property damage to proceed on environmental grounds. Yes, you read that correctly. 

So here’s the short version. Fourteen people who suffered property damage during Hurricane Katrina decided to launch a class action against the companies, namely Murphy Oil USA, they feel contributed to the severity of Katrina. The thinking goes that these companies’ emissions contributed to the greenhouse effect—which in turn paved the way for Read the rest of this entry »

Hospital Infections: Take Matters into Your Own Hands

October 20th, 2009. By janem

Hospital infections are on the rise, for numerous reasons. It’s a no-brainer that hospital cleanliness and low infection rates are selected most often (by 74 percent of patients) as an important factor when choosing a hospital. And you’ll likely want to get out and recover at home sooner than later.

According to healthcare experts in the UK, a second wave of swine flu pandemic could increase hospital admissions, which could lead to a rise in hospital infections, particularly MRSA. The Department of Health advises early discharge of patients from hospital to try and prevent a rise in the killer superbug: research has shown that when a hospital’s bed occupancy rate exceeds 90 per cent, MRSA rates can be as much as 40 per cent above average.

In the US, researchers have found more MRSA infections associated with H1N1 flu.

Two fatal infections occurred recently in Buffalo, NY: the victims, a 9-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, arrived at ER several days after being seen for mild flu symptoms. Both children died of necrotizing pneumonia, one 11 days after being hospitalized and one after 3 days.

Another recent study has shown that hospital workers who see many patients in the course of a day, such as radiologists or physical therapists, may play a disproportionate role in spreading dangerous hospital-acquired infections.

As a patient, you can take some measures, such as safe hand-washing procedures, into your own hands.

“Hospitalized patients shouldn’t be shy about asking the health-care workers who come in contact with them to follow infection control guidelines,” said Dr. Zachary Rubin, an epidemiologist at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital in Santa Monica. Some hospitals are more stringent than others: they have signs posted in patient rooms asking “Did your health-care worker wash his hands?” to make patients more aware of the importance of hand washing.

“If a patient is concerned [about lack of hygiene from a health-care worker], he can always talk to the head nurse or charge nurse,” Rubin said, as well as the hospital’s patient advocate or his own physician.

If your concerns aren’t addressed immediately, you might also want to seek legal help.

Hospital Infection Statistics

* According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at any point in time, 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from infections acquired in hospitals.
* A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report published in March-April 2007 estimated the number of U.S. deaths from healthcare asociated infections in 2002 at 98,987.
* Hospital-acquired infection (HRI) often leads to lengthening hospitalization, increasing the likelihood of readmission, and adding sizably to the cost of care per patient.
* Financially, hospital infections represent an estimated annual impact of $6.7 billion to healthcare facilities, but the human cost is even higher.

And last but definitely not least:

* According to Dr. Mark Chassin, who leads the Joint Commission, the lack of hand-washing contributes to infections linked to hospital care that kill almost 100,000 Americans a year. (In September, The Joint Commission launched the Center for Transforming Healthcare, whose first initiative is tackling hand washing failures that contribute to health care-associated infections.)