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In 2003, a 19-year-old Stanford University dropout named Elizabeth Holmes launched Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup that promised quick blood tests at a lower cost than a traditional lab. Raising millions from private investors, Theranos claimed that just a few drops of blood sent away to their lab could be screened for a long list of health conditions, all at a cost of less than $3. By 2018, the company was bankrupt and founder Elizabeth Holmes was charged with 9 counts of federal wire fraud, as well as 2 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The company officially closed its doors in September 2018.

Real Partnership with Walgreens, False Claims of Association with Department of Defense

Business really began to boom when Theranos partnered with Walgreens in 2013. Forty Walgreens locations across the country would carry Theranos’ Edison blood testing device, which the company claimed could quickly and cheaply screen for a myriad of disease. It has been claimed that Walgreens blindly agreed to a deal without personally testing the device’s accuracy to avoid a competitor partnering with Theranos first. Soon after, questions began being raised about the accuracy of blood tests allegedly run on the Edison device. A class action lawsuit filed in California by Theranos patients alleges that the company’s tests falsely diagnosed them with diseases they didn’t have. Clinical scientists suspect that such small samples of blood (which is all Theranos claimed to have needed) would then have had to be diluted to be run on standard blood testing machines. This dilution leads to less accurate test results and is not considered acceptable practice for blood-based lab tests. Walgreens ended its partnership with Theranos and sued them for breach of contract in June 2016.

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On Monday, we began a week long feature on our blog about major companies and organizations that engaged in poor corporate conduct. The list of these companies and their bad deeds are courtesy of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), a group committed to preserving Americans right to a trial by jury. The list, officially titled “Worst Corporate Conduct of 2018” can be found here.

Today’s focus is on General Motors and their refusal to recall their newer model cars equipped with Takata airbags. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), “Roughly 37 million vehicles equipped with 50 million defective Takata air bags are under recall. Long-term exposure to high heat and humidity can cause these air bags to explode when deployed. Such explosions have caused injuries and deaths.” NHTSA also says that an additional 15-20 million airbags will be recalled by December of this year.

To date, at least 24 people have died from defective Takata airbags and nearly 300 have been injured.

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On Monday, we began a week long feature on our blog about major companies and organizations that engaged in poor corporate conduct. The list of these companies and their bad deeds are courtesy of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), a group committed to preserving Americans right to a trial by jury. The list, officially titled “Worst Corporate Conduct of 2018” can be found here.

Today’s focus is on State Farm, the Bloomington, Illinois-based company that provides a full spectrum of insurance, from auto to pet coverage. State Farm is currently the largest provider of auto insurance in the U.S. Unfortunately, last year they were also found to have been in violation of something called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law better known as the RICO Act.

Read below to find out what, exactly, landed them on the bad businesses list.

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Yesterday, we began a week long feature on our blog about major companies and organizations that engaged in poor corporate conduct. The list of these companies and their bad deeds are courtesy of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), a group committed to preserving Americans right to a trial by jury. The list, officially titled “Worst Corporate Conduct of 2018” can be found here.

Today, we’re focusing on the oil industry and major U.S. players who have denied any knowledge of their role in climate change, despite evidence proving otherwise. These 5 oil behemoths, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell were also co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by the City of New York. Read below to find out what, exactly, landed them on the bad businesses list.


New York City Wants Big Oil to Pay

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In December, the American Association for Justice (AAJ) released their 2018 compilation of major companies and organizations that engaged in poor corporate conduct. These businesses, in an effort to protect their own best interests, put the financial, emotional, and physical well-being of their clients, customers, and students at risk. AAJ highlights the use of many of these corporations’ textbook-style apologies, questioning whether or not these apologies are merely part of the business handbook, or are true attempts at honest remediation.

Apologies are easy. Fixing the way you do business is harder and significantly more expensive. Without the public calling them on the carpet and forcing them to make things right, these businesses will continue to act in their own best interests in order to save face and money. This is where the law comes in. Holding offenders accountable for their actions and forcing them to right wrongs is what protects us as both individuals and as consumers.

First Corporate Offender: Navient

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Until now, OSHA has never before undone a law that put safety requirements in play to protect workers from known carcinogens. Not once.  

Beryllium, a toxic element and known carcinogen, is at the heart of a fight between construction and shipyard employees and the federal government. On January 9, 2017, less than 2 weeks before President Trump was sworn into office, former President Obama published a law that would require construction and shipyard industries to protect their workers by requiring air quality testing and monitoring employees for beryllium exposure. The law, set to go into effect in June 2019, was stalled on March 21, 2017 by the Trump administration, saying it wanted to delay the law due to concerns over the impact it would have on abrasives manufacturers, shipyard and construction companies. In late June, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) announced it wanted to completely abandon beryllium safety protections.


Beryllium Puts Shipyard and Construction Works at Risk for Disease & Cancer

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abuse and neglect attorneys

Minors Languish Inside Illinois’ Largest Immigrant Detainee Home

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that agents detained a total of 5,283 children who weren’t accompanied by a parent in November of 2018. Ad in December of 2018, two immigrant children died on separate occasions in just over two weeks which created strong scrutiny of U.S. authorities held responsible for their care. For more than 20 years, Chicago has been the temporary home to many migrant children who have been detained after entering the U.S. Some of these young immigrants either crossed the border alone or as we have come to know most recently, taken from their immigrant parents and placed into the custody of the CBP and then overseen by the U.S. Health and Human Services department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The largest caretaker or shelter agency for these children in Illinois is a 130-year-old nonprofit organization branded with the name Heartland. Employees from multiple Heartland agencies have been reported saying immigrant children are in fact neglected or abused due to insufficient shelter care staff and oversight of the agency, similar to the everyday problems today’s elderly face while living in understaffed nursing homes.

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talcum powder risk

New Evidence Shows Johnson & Johnson Execs Likely Knew Talc Found in Baby Powder Was Not Safe

For decades, claims of cancer-causing talc found in popular American household brand Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder have stayed alive through more than 11,700 plaintiffs and hundreds of personal injury reviews, successful lawsuits, and dozens of intense investigative reports. Most recently, under the close watch of a Reuters published review, thousands of court released internal and confidential documents uncover the company’s knowingly talc and asbestos risk could have been responsible for causing horrible diseases, such as ovarian cancer. Worse, it’s believed many Johnson & Johnson executives and scientists may have known about the issue since the early 1970s and chose to do nothing about it.

Within the Reuters review of these now unshielded Johnson & Johnson documents, as well as trial testimony and scientific research reviews, several conclusions were made as noted by Reuters in a December 14, 2018 NBC news special report.

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vietnam veteran care

Vietnam Veteran’s Wrongful Death Awarded $7 Million Verdict

A Cook County Circuit Court jury recently awarded $7 million to the family of Patrick Stein, a two-tour Vietnam veteran, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), after nurses and paramedics failed to keep him safe in an ambulance transfer from St. James-Olympia Fields hospital to the Edward Hines Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital for psychiatric treatment. The 64-year-old Army veteran died in July 2014, after his PTSD confusion resettled and prompted him to exit an ambulance while it was traveling 30 to 35 miles per hours and sustain fatal injuries to his head and body. Prior to his transfer, his concerned family had brought him to the St. James-Olympia Fields emergency room after finding him outside his daughter’s home with a butcher knife clutched to his abdomen. Once Mr. Stein arrived at the hospital though, he did not remember the episode with the knife and continued to present dangerous confusion, prompting his fatal ambulance ride to the VA hospital. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts almost 31 percent of Vietnam veterans.

Levin & Perconti attorneys Michael Bonamarte, Margaret Battersby Black and Cari Silverman brought the suit on behalf of Mr. Stein’s family. The attorneys argued that Mr. Stein, given his medical history, should have been carefully monitored by medical staff to protect and prevent him from injuring himself during the transfer. Hospital nurses were also faulted for failing to relay information to the paramedics about his mental state. The clinical impressions of the medical staff at St. James indicated Mr. Stein to exhibit:

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Nearly 75% of all firefighter deaths in 2016 were cancer-related.

So says data from Firefighter Cancer Support Network, an organization whose aim is to bring comfort, support, and resources to families of firefighters who have received a cancer diagnosis. Boston Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn called the number of firefighter cancer deaths in his city an “epidemic”  in a 2017 interview with NBC News’ Tom Costello.

In his NBC interview, Boston Fire Commissioner Finn recalls a 2002 explosion at a power plant. 200 city firefighters responded to a fire that left them covered with chemicals pouring from the ceiling. A quarter of those who responded have since been diagnosed with a cardiac issue or cancer.

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