Spicemakers have been in the news in the past over product safety issues. Last year, a man who claimed to have received salmonella poisoning at a buffet restaurant filed a personal injury lawsuit against a spicemaker. In April of last year, a spice recall was instituted after nearly 50 people in multiple states became ill due to spice linked to salmonella. The strain of salmonella was of particular concern because it was both rare and dangerous.

As described above, salmonella-stricken spices caused severe personal injuries last year and the Chicago product liability attorneys at Levin & Perconti are glad that the FDA is reexamining spice safety. Our Illinois product safety attorneys represent victims in matters against corporations or manufacturers who have sold or manufactured unsafe products to consumers – and “products” in this sense includes unsafe food.

For more information on reexamining potential spice contamination, click here.

The lawmakers have written letters to the CEOS of the four largest insurance companies, asking these companies to provide information about claim denials for policyholders with preexisting conditions and refusing coverage for potential customers with medical conditions. Congress also wants the insurers to list their average premiums and average increases, information about the companies' maternity care coverage in the individual market, and information to justify rate increases.

The medical malpractice attorneys at Levin and Perconti are members of the American Association for Justice and will remain on top of these issues. The personal injury attorneys at Levin and Perconti constantly work to protect not only their clients’ rights to healthcare but the right of all America's patients to healthcare.

The FDA regulates almost every facet of prescription drugs – testing, manufacturing, labeling, advertising, marketing, efficacy, and safety. A drug that is approved by the FDA is said to be “safe and effective when used as directed.” The product liability attorneys at Levin & Perconti try to keep our Chicago attorneys updated on drug safety or recalls. Earlier this year, the FDA added new product liability health warnings to Meridia, a popular diet and weight loss drug. Although European Medicines Agency advised physicians and pharmacists in Europe to stop using the drug altogether, the FDA added a warning stating that the drug is associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in people who use the drug and have a history of heart problems.

To read more about the added boxed warning to Plavix, click here.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Chinese drywall product liability cases, over a year ago, homeowners began experiencing problems with drywall manufactured in China. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) followed the complaints by ramping up an investigation into the faulty drywall product that was emitting sulfuric odors and exposing homeowners to personal injuries such as respiratory problems. The company agreed to strip out to the low-quality drywall and replace it. Unfortunately, the Chinese drywall affected homeowners by driving owners from the homes. Further, the fix is extremely expensive – with local builders estimating that the product liability could cost more than $5 million. Last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the CPSC issued guidelines for homeowners to identify dangerous drywall. The process consisted of two steps – (1) an initial or threshold inspection to find visual signs of metal corrosion and evidence of installation during the relevant time period and (2) the identification of corroborating evidence or characteristics.

Click here to read more about the “test case” for the Chinese drywall litigation.

Illinois state Senators Jacqueline Collins and Heather Steans co-sponsored the legislation, which is backed by groups such as the AARP, unions representing health care workers, the Supportive Housing Providers Association, and Illinois Citizens for Better Care. As an AARP volunteer from Decatur stated, and Levin & Perconti has unfortunately realized for a long time now, thousands of nursing home residents in Illinois are victims of nursing home abuse, assault, and inadequate care. The nursing home group says that the legislation is unreasonable and mentions that the state has cut back on public health surveyors for many years.

Specifically, Senate Bill 685 aims to address these problems by improving the quality of care, creating meaningful regulations for Illinois nursing homes, providing regulations that promote resident safety, improve the quality of care for nursing home residents through provisions like higher staff to patient ratios and enhanced training, and offering less restrictive alternatives to people who do not need nursing home care.

The AARP has set up a Nursing Home Legislation Hotline. Citizens can contact their legislators and urge them to support by the SB 685 by calling 1-888-616-3322.

Click here to read more about the Illinois nursing home legislation.

To read the AARP summary, click here.

Fortunately, this fire appears to have been contained to the one unit and did not spread to other parts. If residents’ accounts of non-functioning smoke detectors and fire alarms are true, this fire could have led to tragic results. We will keep watching as this story unfolds.

Click here to read the Lake Effect News story on the Uptown fire.

The injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti are familiar with what tragedies occur when smoke detectors fail. The Illinois fire injury attorneys represented families of six children who died in a tragic apartment fire in 2006 in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Two other children were severely injured in the fire. The Chicago landlords of the apartment building failed to ensure that the unit had functioning smoke detectors. This violated the Chicago Municipal Code. In 2007, the injury attorneys obtained a $6 million settlement on behalf of the families of the Rogers Park apartment fire victims in their lawsuit against the building owners and managers.

To read more about the 2007 wrongful death settlement, click here.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune outlined the landlord’s alleged murder plan that led to the deadly Illinois fire. According to Cook County prosecutors, the landlord intended to burn down one of his Cicero apartment buildings and collect on the $250,000 insurance policy. He was planning to move to West Virginia and make himself hard to find without a telephone or mail service. He is alleged to have hired the Cicero building’s maintenance man to carry out the plot to torch the wood structure during the day when the children were at school and women were at work. Apparently, the handyman didn’t listen – and set fire at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday.

Unfortunately, the Chicago injury attorneys are not unfamiliar with stories of deadly Illinois fires. The Illinois wrongful death attorneys represented the families of six children who died in a tragic apartment fire on Chicago’s north side. Two other children had sustained severe burns in the fire. The landlords of the building where the deadly fire occurred failed to have proper and working smoke detectors in violation of the Chicago Municipal Code. The Chicago attorneys obtained a $6 million settlement on behalf of the families of the Chicago fire victims.

Click here to read more about the deadly Illinois fire.

The Chicago Tribune noted that many of the Illinois nursing homes where sexual attacks occurred were operated with insufficient nursing home staff. Mr. Levin replied that substandard nursing home staffing is the cause of the majority of Illinois nursing home neglect and safety issues. Mr. Levin added that some nursing home owners focus on census and revenue over the safety of their nursing home residents. In order to end the incessant violence in Chicago nursing homes, we must address the issue of nursing home staffing.

As highlighted in a blog post from earlier this week, Illinois elected officials are stepping up their push for nursing home safety, but there is more that we can do. Readers are encouraged to contact your state representatives to demand legislation providing adequate staffing standards for Illinois nursing homes. You can find out who your state representative is by clicking here.

To read the Letter to the Editor that Steven M. Levin submitted to the Chicago Tribune, click here.

Chicago police have joined forces with investigators and medical experts from the Illinois Attorney General’s office to find unregistered felons and sex offenders living in Illinois nursing homes. When visiting Illinois nursing homes unannounced, authorities are also interviewing nursing home residents and nursing home staff at the Illinois facilities with histories of serious resident safety breaches. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is also working to introduce a comprehensive package of nursing home safety-reform bills in the near future.

The nursing home injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti are glad that vulnerable nursing home residents are finally getting the attention they need and deserve. For too long, residents have been neglected, being abused under the radar. Recently, Governor Quinn’s Nursing Home Safety Task Force completed a 52-page plan to overhaul our state of Illinois’s troubled nursing home system. The task force was formed after a Tribune investigation documented rapes, attacks, and murders at Illinois and Chicago nursing homes that serve the area’s poorest residents. Particularly troublesome in Illinois is its reliance on nursing homes to house younger psychiatric patients, including more than 3,000 with felony records. This is an issue that Levin & Perconti has often highlighted in its Illinois nursing home abuse blog. More than a dozen early nursing home safety bills have already been introduced by nursing home advocates and the nursing home industry.

Click here to read the full Chicago Tribune article about the increased safety push.

Despite reports of dangerous Toyota errors, the company was quiet and blamed driver error or faulty floor mats. Similarly, federal regulators did not press the company. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration opened and closed half a dozen investigations without any significant action on the product liability.

The writer of the editorial addressed that United States court system and the role that injury attorneys play in it provides an early warning system, alerting regulators and news organizations to product hazards that the public would likely not be aware of. Courts also get responses from manufacturers who might have been able to fend off federal investigators if they decided to investigate product concerns. The writer of the article summed it up when he said it’s time to recognize once more that litigation over dangerous products and services can avert countless wrongful deaths and personal injuries.

To read the full editorial, click here.

In part because of insufficient government oversight, lethal defects have recently gone uncorrected for years in the Toyota recall. Affecting various models, we have now learned that car owner complaints of product liability issues were either minimized or ignored by Toyota and the regulatory government agencies that were responsible for policing the company. One review of federal records found as many as 2,600 consumer product complaints of sudden acceleration over a 10 year period. And, only now has any product recall been issued. According to CBS, released internal documents now indicate that Toyota was tracing its problem to its software as far back as 2005.

Simply put, the government is overburdened following the Bush administration’s weakening of regulatory agencies’ power through cutting funding and personnel in addition to a massive work load. A case in point is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its caseload extended to more than 11,000 existing drugs, 100 new drugs yearly and a products ranging from foods to vaccines that account for almost 25% of all consumer spending. Trial attorneys, such as the product liability attorneys at Levin & Perconti, act as a check and help to give a voice to consumers who have been ignored by companies and the government. Product liability lawsuits have played a crucial role in ensuring public safety and encouraging manufacturers to put safety, instead of profits, first.

Click here to read the entire piece on the need for trial attorneys.

Mr. Flowers set the background by informing readers that this was the third time the issue of caps was before the court and the third time that the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of the citizens’ right to seek just compensation. Following the decision, those who side with the insurance industry have had an unfavorable reaction to the Illinois Supreme Court ruling and in opposing its decision have spread fiction and chosen to ignore the facts of caps. Opposers state that the absence of caps caused an exodus of doctors from Illinois; however, the truth is that since 1963, the number of doctors in Illinois has increased.

Another piece of fiction that is often spread to readers statewide and physicians statewide is that insurance premiums for doctors rose because of the lack of caps on damages for medical mistakes. The truth is that the rise in insurance premiums has more to do with insurance company greed – the state’s largest medical malpractice insurer recorded profits of $124.2 million from 2006 through 2008. The little decrease that happened when the caps were in place occurred because of insurance reform and state mandates.

Most people often forget is that compensation for victims is not a “prize.” Illinois medical malpractice victims suffer from the medical mistakes for the rest of their lives; they deserve to seek justice. Mr. Flowers addresses that the solution to rising insurance premiums for physicians will happen by reforming the insurance industry. Reforms work and should be re-enacted so that doctors are not faced with unconscionable increases in their premiums while insurance companies make enormous profits. When insurance companies are held accountable, health care in Illinois will improve.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, led by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, has reported that it is also reviewing the car crash, but no criminal charges have been filed against the driver yet. Witness accounts state that the driver was traveling between 80 to 90 miles per hour, hitting the Honda so hard that it knocked the car accident toddler victim out of the car seat he was fastened into and into a rear window. The friends were also ejected from the vehicle. The parents of the wrongful death victim are trying to cope for the time being. Levin & Perconti is keeping the parents and those coping with this horrific loss in our thoughts.

Click here to read more about the car accident lawsuit.