Brianna Smith is a freelance writer and editor in Southwest Michigan. A graduate of Grand Valley State University, Brianna has a passion for politics, social issues, education, science, and more. When she’s not writing, she enjoys the simple life with her husband, daughter, and son.
An important new safety alert has been issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for parents who use baby hammocks with their babies. The scrutiny over the hammocks arose after “two newborns died in their sleep,” prompting regulators to propose new safety standards for not only baby hammocks but other products “where newborns sleep in an inclined position.”
It’s always a good idea for patients to get a second opinion for any kind of ailment they’re diagnosed with, especially since new Mayo Clinic research shows that more than “20 percent of patients who sought a second opinion at one of the nation’s premier medical institutions had been misdiagnosed by their primary care providers.”
Mylan isn’t doing so well lately. Not only is it currently grappling with numerous lawsuits over their suspicious EpiPen pricing, but now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a huge recall of the company’s EpiPen and EpiPen Jr. over concerns that the emergency injectors could fail to activate because of a defective part.
As a result of a terrible accident involving a “drunk goggles” intoxication demonstration, the Davis School District has agreed to pay $100,000 to a teenage girl and her family to settle a personal injury lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, the student, Kylie Nielsen, of Kaysville, was injured in class the morning of May 9, 2014, at Centennial Junior High School. She was 13 at the time, and the accident, which resulted in a crippling leg injury, occurred “during an alcohol impairment simulation exercise in a health class.”
Another African American employee of the Fox News network has joined a recent racial discrimination lawsuit filed by two of her colleagues. Monica Douglas, who joins Tabrese Wright and Tichaona Brown, has filed similar complaints as her colleagues about the network’s former controller, Judith Slater, who has since been fired.
Mylan has been in the news a lot lately, and now that it’s facing a “new proposed class action lawsuit over the price of its EpiPen allergy treatment,” the company is bound to be in the news even more in coming months. The lawsuit was filed by three EpiPen purchasers on Monday in Tacoma, Washington federal court, claiming that “Mylan engaged in a scheme with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).” What are PBMs? They’re “companies that act as intermediaries between pharmacies, insurers and drug companies – to dominate the market and overcharge consumers.”
Texas Roadhouse, a restaurant chain based out of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $12 million to settle an age discrimination lawsuit that was filed way back in 2011. The lawsuit itself was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming the chain “violated federal laws by refusing to hire people age 40 and older for front-of-the-house jobs like hosts, bartenders, and servers.”
Fox News is under fire amid allegations that the network “failed to address racial discrimination against two black women who work for the company.” Just last Tuesday, Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright sued the network, claiming they and “other dark-skinned employees suffered years-long racial animus from Judith Slater, a former senior vice president and company controller.”
After lengthy litigation, the dispute surrounding Trump University is finally over. On Friday, a federal judge finally approved a “$25 million settlement deal between President Trump and students” who paid for and attended real estate seminars at Trump University. Though the deal was originally agreed upon back in November, it had to undergo approval by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Fortunately for former students, the settlement calls for President Trump to “reimburse the students who say they were defrauded.”
Last week, lawmakers in West Virginia moved closer on a plan to “seize $24 million in recent drug lawsuit settlement funds” to put the money towards increasing beds in drug treatment facilities throughout the state. The measure, known as HB 2428, was passed in the House of Delegates with a unanimous vote, and will actually charge the Virginia Department of Health and Human Resource (DHHR) with the responsibility of using the money to “make extra treatment beds available by July 2018.”