27 May 2016

Theranos Sued Over Faulty Blood Tests

Original Story:  siliconbeat.com

Things keep getting worse for Theranos.

A new lawsuit accuses Thernos of misleading customers about the accuracy of its blood tests, a week after the embattled Palo Alto company reportedly admitted to voiding two years of results.

The class-action lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday claims Theranos’ breakthrough product, which was supposed to provide a revolutionary way to conduct tests with just a few drops of blood taken from a patient’s finger, didn’t work.  Contact a Los Angeles product liability lawyer if you need assistance with a case.

“As a result, tens of thousands of patients may have been given incorrect blood-test results, been subject to unnecessary or potentially harmful treatments, and/or been denied the opportunity to seek treatment for a treatable condition,” the complaint states.

The Edison machines, used at Walgreens Pharmacies in California and Arizona to conduct the finger-prick tests, have caused Theranos significant headaches. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the company told federal regulators it threw out all Edison test results for 2014 and 2015. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services are considering pulling Theranos’ licenses and banning founder Elizabeth Holmes from the industry.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of an Arizona man, claims Theranos told patients its tests were accurate and validated by the FDA and other bodies, when in reality the company was in hot water with regulators over its lack of compliance. In February 2015, an Edison device testing hormone levels failed 87 percent of quality-control checks, according to the complaint.

The suit also claims Theranos misled the public by claiming it was using the Edison devices for certain tests, when it really wasn’t.

The suit seeks to represent thousands of people who purchased Edison blood tests.

25 May 2016

Melissa Gilbert 'Devastated' Over Doctor's Orders to Withdraw from Michigan Congressional Race Due to Spinal Injury

 Original Story: yahoo.com

Melissa Gilbert is ending her campaign for Congress in Michigan’s 8th district due to a spinal injury that will require surgery. A Michigan spinal cord injury lawyer says these injuries are more common than you think.

The 52-year-old actress who rose to fame playing Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little House on the Prairie says she’s “devastated” that her doctors advised her to withdraw from the race.

“My doctors said there’s no way for me to continue to deal with the incredibly rigorous demands of a congressional campaign without continuing to do harm to my body,” Gilbert tells PEOPLE.

Gilbert says she is facing two herniated discs in her spine as the result of two head and neck injuries she sustained in 2012. First, she suffered whiplash and a concussion after a fall on Dancing with the Stars in April and months later the balcony of a house she was renting in Studio City, California collapsed over her head.

“I was standing under the back balcony talking to my kids and it detached from the house and it collapsed on my head,” she recalls. “I ended up with a concussion and stitches in my head and it compressed two healthy discs in my neck.”

These issues are compounded by what she calls a “long history” of neck and spine issues, beginning with a surgery to fuse a herniated disc in 2003. Contact a Grand Rapids SCI lawyer if you are looking for compensation for an injury.

Over the past four years, Gilbert says the nerve damage resulting from her injuries has become unbearable.

“I have numbness in my right hand, shooting pains in my right arm and numbness in my neck,” she says. “So, after years of care, my neurologists are sending me to a neurosurgeon because I need to have another spinal surgery.”

The surgery has not yet been scheduled and the recovery will take at least three months, making Gilbert’s dream of becoming the district’s first Democratic representative since the 1990s impossible.

“It’s indescribable to have to make this decision because I had my sights set on my opponent and a lot of people around me felt that I could win,” Gilbert says.

The actress who served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for four years adds that she won’t rule out another political run in the future.

“I’m too engaged at this point. I know too much and there is so much that needs to be done in this district and this state and this country,” she says. “That’s why I jumped into the race in the first place.”

“I will continue on this road of being of service,” she continues. “I wont know where that will take me but I’m not going to rule anything out.”

Lapses In Infection Control Found At Two Los Angeles Hospitals

Original Story: modernhealthcare.com

California health inspectors dispatched to two Los Angeles hospitals following "superbug" outbreaks involving a hard-to-clean medical scope found numerous safety violations that appeared to put more patients at risk, according to a newspaper report. This means past patients may be contacting a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer.

The state declared an "immediate jeopardy" — meaning lives were at imminent risk — on March 4, 2015 at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Inspectors found staff using contaminated water and a tainted liquid cleaner dispenser being used to ready colonoscopes and other devices for the next patients.

The rare "immediate jeopardy" ruling was used again three weeks later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. There inspectors found a "widespread pattern of potential ineffective sterilization and storage of surgical instruments" as well as problems with the disinfection of scopes.

Both hospitals quickly fixed the problems, according to the Department of Public Health. The "immediate jeopardy" was lifted after just three hours at UCLA and a day at Cedars. On follow-up visits, the state found the problems had not continued. This doesn't mean that people may not contact a Los Angeles medical malpractice lawyer for assistance.

UCLA and Cedars officials said Friday they were not aware of any patients who were sickened by the sterilization problems the state regulators found during the March 2015 inspections.

Yet patient advocates said that the reports showed how infection control practices can lag even at top hospitals that had recently responded to bacteria outbreaks.

"You would think these very sophisticated leading facilities would have been on a hospital-wide alert," said Lisa McGiffert, who leads the safe patient project at Consumers Union, told the Times. "Hospital leadership is not putting enough resources into infection control."

At the time of the superbug outbreaks, which both began in late 2014 and extended into early 2015, officials at the hospitals said they had stepped up cleaning of duodenoscopes — the device made by Olympus linked to the infections.

Contamination of the scopes, lightweight tubes threaded through the mouth into the top of the small intestine, has been linked to bacterial outbreaks that sickened dozens of patients in hospitals around the country. In an outbreak at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, officials confirmed that patients had died. Contact a Los Angeles wrongful death lawyer if you feel you have lost a loved one due to the fault of another.

Olympus recalled one of its duodeonscope models in January. An outside expert had told the company in 2012 that the design of the device could allow bacteria to remain trapped after cleaning.