Birmingham Injury Blog

The Maryland Injury Attorney Blog has posted an article about another case of nursing home abuse. Generally, one expects the culprits of nursing home abuse to be the employees; however, sometimes fellow residents are the guilty party.

A 98 year old Boston nursing home resident has been indicted for strangling and smothering her 100 year old roommate to death with a plastic shopping bag because she felt her roommate was "trying to take over the room."

...the victim's son had asked the facility to separate the two women due to tensions between them, but he was reassured that they were getting along -- and that his mother did not want to leave the room, where she had lived with her husband until his death in 2007.

The women's room was mere feet from the nurses' station, yet no one noticed a disturbance. Apparently, the 98 year old suffered from dementia and was prone to bouts of "erratic behavior."

Yahoo News has posted an article that discusses the ongoing problem of teenagers continuing to text while driving. The majority of teens choose to ignore bans on texting while driving. Bans are hard for police to enforce:

Some police agencies, while strongly in favor of such mandates, say its tough for officers to enforce them.

The California Highway Patrol has handed out nearly 163,000 tickets to drivers talking on hand-held phones since mid-2008. But it has issued only 1,400 texting citations since January in a state of 23 million drivers -- not for lack of trying.

"The handheld cell phone is relatively easy for us to spot, we can see when somebody has their phone up to their ear," CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said.

"But with the texting it's a little bit more of a challenge to catch them in the act, because we have to see it and if they are holding it down in their lap it's going to be harder for us to see."

Texting increases the likelihood of being in an accident by as much as 23 times.

"What I would say is that texting and cell phone devices have become such a component of life for teens and for young people that it's hard for them to differentiate between doing something normal and doing something wrong," said Steven Bloch, senior research associate for the Automobile Club.

The Alabama Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article that discusses the FDA's reluctance to discipline doctors and medical researchers who have committed crimes while carrying out research for the FDA.

According to government watchdog group, many of these criminally convicted health professionals are in charge of overseeing the safety of patients undergoing clinical trials, which calls into question how safe any of us are when it comes to medical research in general.

The article mentions one specific doctor who remained in practice for 11 years...

even though he had been convicted of 53 counts of criminal offense for, among other things, bribing an employee to conceal information about the attempted suicide of a clinical-trial patient and prescribing a drug without a license.

The FDA has the power to ban doctors from overseeing medical research if federal regulations are ignored while caring for clinical trial patients. The organization is also required to disqualify doctors who have been accused of other crimes, such as fraud.

The types of misconduct that can get a doctor debarred include submitting false information to the FDA, forging patient consent forms and not reporting when a patient has an adverse reaction to an experimental drug.

However, it may take as long as 4 years to apprehend the offending doctors.

The Tennnessee Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article that discusses another dangerous aspect of driving under the influence.

If convicted of a DUI, the jury may also require that the offending driver pay punitive damages, on top of the criminal charges associated with a DUI. The driver may be held responsible for damages to the other vehicle and/or other property, medical bills and lost wages of the other driver and any other expenses because of the accident.

Driving under the influence is one of the most commonly committed criminal offenses. Often, no one is seriously injured as a result of such conduct but driving under the influence has also been responsible for a multitude of deaths and serious injuries. If such injury occurs, the driver can be held responsible for the injury both by the imposition of criminal charges and the awarding of a large amount of damages against the driver.