prozac use during pregnancy linked to heart defects in babies

Prozac lawyer Justinian Lane reports that Prozac and other antidepressants dramatically increase the risk of heart defects if used during pregnancy:

Further analyses revealed that Paxil® and Prozac® raised the risk for congenital (from birth) heart disease to 4.3% and 3.0%, respectively, while the rate in the general population for being born with a congenital heart defect is about half that, at 1.60%.[4]

Source: Paxil, Prozac, and Elevated Risk for Heart Defects

Lane revealed this information in a blog post summarizing three different studies regarding the effect of SSRI use during pregnancy.  “As many as one in five women suffer some sort of depression during pregnancy.  But far fewer than one in five know that using SSRI’s during pregnancy increases the chances of giving birth to a child with a heart defect,” said Lane.

Lane is one of the few personal injury lawyers that handle SSRI birth defect cases.  “These aren’t like a typical car accident case.  Successfully resolving a Prozac birth defect lawsuit takes a team of skilled lawyers with ample resources,” explained Lane.  His firm has offices in San Antonio and Austin, and has a team of eight lawyers who represent injured consumers.

Legal Reader has been hearing rumors that the first Prozac heart defect lawsuit was filed two or three weeks ago.  We are currently chasing down those rumors and will provide commentary when we confirm them.

Asbestos, tobacco, and now tanning salons?

The first thing any industry faced with negative scientific evidence does is form a trade group.  And the first thing that trade group does is gin up “scientific” evidence that claims the industry is being falsely maligned.  The asbestos industry did (and does) it, and of course so did the tobacco industry.  Now, it’s the suntanning industry:

State Sen. Ted Lieu also charged that industry leaders formed the new group, the American Suntanning Association, to evade terms of a settlement with federal regulators who had charged another industry organization with making false claims.

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission released Wednesday, the Democratic lawmaker wrote, “Rather than accepting the overwhelming evidence that indoor tanning is a cause of skin cancer, the [American Suntanning Association] fabricates its own false ‘science’ in a blatant attempt to mislead customers.”

Source: California Lawmaker Seeks Federal Probe of New Tanning Industry Group | FairWarning

forbes story on medical malpractice buries the lede

“Bury the lede” or “bury the lead” – it means the same thing: To put the crucial information at the end of a story.  And that’s just what Forbes did with a recent story on medical malpractice.

The article checks all the right boxes that an article written by an M.D. about medical malpractice should: Defensive medicine, fear and uncertainty, unpredictability, etc.  The author unsurprisingly concludes that we need some sort of legal reform to “fix” the system.  But here is the buried lede:

While less than 5 percent of all medical errors lead to a malpractice claim, lengthy claims prolong the legal process, and in some cases, delay what may be just and fair compensation.

Source: Medical Malpractice: Broken Beyond Repair? - Forbes

So only 5 out 100 medical errors result in a malpractice lawsuit?  Sounds like the real medical malpractice crisis is that it’s rampant and unchecked.

Some maryland surgical centers receive little oversight

Apparently, it’s not whether something walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s whether it bills insurance companies like a duck:

There is tremendous oversight in the operating rooms in hospitals.  But in Maryland, some other locations where surgery is done simply don't.  Maryland’s Health Secretary, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, acknowledges some clinics where cosmetic surgery procedures are done don’t get licensed or inspected.       

In Maryland, he says medspas and plastic surgery clinics that don't bill insurance as “ambulatory surgery centers” aren't overseen like hospitals, even though they may do some of the same procedures.

It’s a legal loophole some consider a fatal flaw in the state’s health system.  And the family of a woman who died following a procedure at a Baltimore County medspa is attempting to shed light on the issue.  Denise Witherspoon and her family spoke exclusively with ABC2 about the death of their sister, Eula.

Source: Family of medspa patient talks for first time to expose medical loophole in Maryland

Lack of proper governmental oversight plagues many industries.  The civil justice system is a great cure for that.

depuy engineer explains flaw in internal testing of asr hip

The New York Times reports on the interesting information being revealed in the first DePuy ASR hip trial:

Separately, a DePuy engineer, Graham Isaac, testified on Thursday that before selling the A.S.R., the company only tested its performance on laboratory equipment at one angle of implantation.

Depending on the surgical technique and a patient’s build, orthopedic surgeons can implant the cup component of an artificial hip at a variety of angles. And because the A.S.R. had a design flaw, normal variance from the single angle at which DePuy had tested it made it more likely for the joint’s cup and ball components to strike each other, releasing metallic debris inside a patient. 

Source: Hip Implant’s Risks Inadequately Assessed, DePuy Report Found in 2010 - NYTimes.com

Our sources tell us that the DePuy ASR implants are very likely to have been implanted at angles other than the one that was tested internally.  Whether the fact that DePuy engineers only tested one angle was intentional or a coincidence is purely a matter of conjecture at this point.