Heavy use of herbicide Roundup linked to health dangers: study

Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.

The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.

Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says. We "have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated," Seneff said.

Environmentalists, consumer groups and plant scientists from several countries have warned that heavy use of glyphosate is causing problems for plants, people and animals.

The EPA is conducting a standard registration review of glyphosate and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if glyphosate use should be limited. The study is among many comments submitted to the agency.

Monsanto is the developer of both Roundup herbicide and a suite of crops that are genetically altered to withstand being sprayed with the Roundup weed killer.

These biotech crops, including corn, soybeans, canola and sugarbeets, are planted on millions of acres in the United States annually. Farmers like them because they can spray Roundup weed killer directly on the crops to kill weeds in the fields without harming the crops.

Roundup is also popularly used on lawns, gardens and golf courses.

Monsanto and other leading industry experts have said for years that glyphosate is proven safe, and has a less damaging impact on the environment than other commonly used chemicals.

Jerry Steiner, Monsanto's executive vice president of sustainability, reiterated that in a recent interview when questioned about the study.

"We are very confident in the long track record that glyphosate has. It has been very, very extensively studied," he said.

Of the more than two dozen top herbicides on the market, glyphosate is the most popular. In 2007, as much as 185 million pounds of glyphosate was used by U.S. farmers, double the amount used six years ago, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.

______________________________
Source: YahooNews (AP, 4/25)

When implanted medical devices go wrong, who pays?

Insurance companies, often stuck with the tab for health services when a medical device fails, are ready to share the pain.

As the number of costly, high-profile recalls rises, along with pressure to cut their own spending, insurers are starting to pin more of the responsibility on manufacturers.

If they succeed, medical device makers - already worried about weaker global demand for many of their products and the impact of a new U.S. tax on their profits - will have even more costs in the wake of product recalls, the biggest of which can already lead to billions of dollars in expenses.

"The (insurance) plans are being more aggressive. The reason it gets so much more focus now is because there are so many cases," said Mark Fischer, chairman of Rawlings & Associates, a unit of the Rawlings Group that helps insurance companies recoup payments from the party that was deemed at fault for claims, a legal service known as subrogation.

In recent years, more than a hundred medical devices were recalled out of concern they could cause serious injury or death.

Rawlings is one of the largest firms providing claims recovery services for the healthcare industry, along with Trover Solutions Group, both based in Louisville, Kentucky. Others include HealthCare Subrogation Group and Meridian Resource Company.

Rawlings is currently retained to pursue more than 30 mass tort cases related to healthcare, compared with an average of about three in a given year just a decade ago, Fischer said.

"There has been a drastic increase in the number of cases being pursued," he said. Insurers tend to hire Rawlings when there are enough cases being filed over a product to warrant multi-district litigation status.

Fischer helped recover funds for insurers from claims on Sulzer Medica's defective hip implants in 2000 and Medtronic Inc's faulty Fidelis defibrillator leads in 2007.

In the Fidelis case, Medtronic settled U.S. lawsuits covering more than 9,000 individual personal injury cases for $221 million, according to their regulatory filings.

Fischer then pursued Medtronic to recover money for clients like WellPoint Inc that had paid doctors and hospitals for treatment relating to the defective leads, or wires that connect an implantable defibrillator to the heart.

He expects a settlement - the first collected from a medical device maker - to be signed by year's end, but would not give a dollar amount.

WellPoint spokeswoman Lori McLaughlin said the insurer routinely tries to collect from manufacturers on recall-related health claims.

Aetna Inc, the nation's third largest insurer, said it has managed to wrest reimbursement from drug and device markers, and has negotiated payments to patients for costs from defective or recalled products, without providing details.

Trover Solutions Chief Executive Robert Bader reckons that about 80 percent of health insurers turn to firms like his to pursue manufacturers in recall cases.

"It's the fiduciary responsibility of the insurer to recover members' premiums from the manufacturer. It's a highly specialized process and so a lot of them outsource," Bader said.

The government's Medicare health plan for the elderly recovers part of the money it paid for recall-related medical services once a settlement is reached, said spokeswoman Kathryn Ceja. She would not give details on how it pursues those funds.

FALLOUT OVER THE RIATA RECALL

A 2010 recall of Riata defibrillator leads by St. Jude Medical could become the next tug-of-war between insurers and medical device makers over who picks up the tab.

Some 79,000 U.S. heart patients still have the lead implanted in a blood vessel leading to the heart. Deciding on how to proceed is tricky since removing the leads may be riskier than leaving them in.

The Food and Drug Administration in August said all Riata patients should receive medical imaging tests to see whether the insulation covering the thin wires eroded, exposing the cables and making them more prone to short-circuit, as well as making the surrounding tissue vulnerable to heat damage.

The agency did not say how often imaging tests should be performed. But ordering just one test per patient will add millions of dollars to the cost of their care.

A single fluoroscopy - which shows a real-time, continuous X-ray image on a monitor - for each Riata patient could cost between $7.9 million and $45.3 million overall, based on a Reuters review of the procedure's cost at different hospitals.

Doctors say more than one X-ray would be needed to monitor the leads, which can remain in a patient's body for many years. Dr. Bruce Lindsay, section head of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said doing an annual imaging study would probably be sufficient.

Even before the FDA guidelines, Medicare covered the extra cost of imaging studies in almost every instance, doctors say. But some private insurers had balked.

"I've had to call (insurers) constantly and justify it," said Dr. Martin Burke, director of the Heart Rhythm Center at the University of Chicago Medicine.

"We're definitely finding more problems (with Riata leads), but surveillance has gone up. We're finding more because we're looking more," he said.

St. Jude spokeswoman Amy Jo Meyer said the company has expanded its regular warranty to include a baseline fluoroscopic or X-ray screening if a patient's insurer does not cover it. Paying for additional imaging would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

"It would not be in device makers' best interest to balk at paying these costs. In the end, they do have to stand behind their products and these products do sometimes fail," said Debbie Wang, an analyst with Morningstar.

TALLYING THE COSTS

Burke and colleagues estimate that Medtronic's Fidelis recall cost Medicare some $287 million over five years for monitoring or replacing the leads, according to a study published in the Heart Rhythm Journal.

Medtronic spokesman Chris Garland said the company gave a credit to patients for its recalled Fidelis leads, plus $1,200 for "reasonable unreimbursed medical expenses." He would not say how many people received the replacement and additional funds.

The Fidelis case was just one out of 113 medical device recalls between 2005 and 2009 classified as serious enough to cause significant health problems or death, according to an analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine last year. Most involved devices that correct heart problems.

The study found that 24,000 patients underwent procedures in 2005 related to problems with devices from Medtronic or from Guidant, now part of Boston Scientific Corp.

"We expect manufacturers to take reasonable responsibility for costs associated with a recall of their products to prevent the healthcare system from absorbing the impact," said Aetna spokeswoman Tammy Arnold.

_________________________
Source: Reuters (Sherman, 10/8)

Workers claim fast-food restaurant sold spoiled chicken to public

CONROE, Texas – A fast food restaurant in Conroe has re-opened after a week-long closure to retrain workers about food safety.

It comes after the KHOU 11 News I-Team uncovered allegations from ex-employees who said the restaurant was selling spoiled food to customers.

One of those former workers is Toisha Corpuz. She was grateful when the KFC on North Loop 336 West in Conroe hired her despite her criminal record. But Corpuz said one day she noticed something.

“It stinks really bad,” Corpuz recalled. She said the stench came from the restaurant’s kitchen and especially its walk-in cooler.

“It just smelled. When you walked in there, it took your breath away,” Corpuz said. She said the smell came from the raw chicken stored in boxes inside the restaurant’s cooler. She also claims things got worse when workers took the chicken out.

“I almost threw up back there when the cooks opened the bags,” Corpuz said.

She says the poultry was spoiled, but that it was still fried and made available for sale to the public.

“You’re a mother, would you want your kids eating that stuff?” the 11 News I-Team asked Corpuz.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

Corpuz and other workers said despite a KFC policy that raw poultry must be used within 10 days of being killed, chicken as old as 16 days was still cooked and served.

“I had no choice,” explained Corpuz. “I had to take care of my children. I had to have a job.”

Eventually, she said she had her husband call in a complaint to Montgomery County Environment Health Services that the KFC was selling spoiled chicken. Records show it took five days before a health inspector showed up at the Conroe KFC.

“We had just sold the last two cases of spoiled chicken,” said Corpuz.

However, the inspector did confirm a “foul odor in back of kitchen and walk-in cooler.”

The 11 News I-Team spoke to other current and former workers at the KFC, including Robert Garrett.

“You knew it was unsafe?” asked the I-Team.

“I knew it was unsafe,” admitted Garrett.

Like Corpuz, he remembered the smell of the expired chicken, comparing it to “expired trash that hasn’t been taken out for awhile.”

Garrett also claimed that raw chicken 16 days past its kill date was cooked and sold anyway.

“There would be times I would know that food that was going out the window or to the public sitting down, that it wasn’t any good and it just makes you sick to your stomach,” said Garrett.

Food safety expert Sarah Klein with the Center for Science in the Public Interest reviewed the allegations.

”We rarely hear this kind of really egregious and deliberate misuse of product and putting public health at such risk,” said Klein.

She said there’s a good reason for KFC’s 10-day limit.

“Things like E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter are very common in poultry,” explained Klein. “So the longer it sits in a refrigerator, the more the bacteria have time to grow and multiply.”

Klein said then not even cooking may make the expired meat safe to eat. She also pointed out something else.

“Whether or not you kill the bacteria through cooking, that meat is still rotting,” said Klein. “So consumers are basically eating fried, rotted meat.”

We took the workers’ allegations to Michael Batts, manager of the Conroe KFC. Batts referred our questions to the restaurant’s owner.

But did he know his restaurant was allegedly serving expired chicken? Corpuz claimed she taped a phone conversation with Batts, her manager, last March.

Manager: Yes?

Corpuz: Sorry to bother you. Hey, we got 22 cases of bad chicken back there.

Manager: Why?

Corpuz: Um, because they’re out of date. Some of them, I think nine of them, went out today and five of them went out yesterday.

Manager: Okay, well cook what you can of it. Change the date on it where it will all go out tomorrow or something, OK?

Corpuz: OK...Just cook as much as possible.

Manager: Cook as much as possible of it.

Corpuz: And change the dates on the rest, OK.

Manager: Don’t cook it OK?

Corpuz: Don’t cook too much, is what you’re saying?

Manager: Do what?

Corpuz: What did you just say?

Manager: I said of course if it’s bad, don’t cook it.

Corpuz: OK.

Manager: But if you can cook it...

Corpuz: OK, bye. Yes sir.

Manager: Don’t cook a whole bunch extra, but you can cook a little extra.

Tem-Kil, Inc. owns the Conroe KFC along with 33 other restaurants in Texas. An executive there declined an on-camera interview. In a statement, the company insisted they are committed to the highest standards of food safety and said Tem-Kil has taken action to ensure high quality and safety at the restaurant.

The national headquarters of KFC also declined to speak on-camera. But a spokesman said in a statement that nothing is more important to KFC than food safety. KFC also said that because of our report, the company started an investigation of the Conroe restaurant and shut down the restaurant for a week so the entire staff could receive additional food safety training.

The director of the Montgomery County Consumer Health Department also declined our repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, Michael Lindsey insisted that his department responded to the March complaint about the sale of spoiled chicken in a timely manner.

Health inspectors visited the restaurant last week after it reopened. They did not find any food safety violations.

Corpuz was fired from the KFC in June for not performing work to her employer’s standards. She contends the restaurant’s claim about her was unfounded, as was her dismissal.

As for Robert Garrett, he left his job at the KFC in late May. He said one of the reasons he quit was because of concerns about food safety.

The I-Team is not aware of any similar allegations against any other KFC in the Houston area.

___________________
Source: WFAA (Noll, 9/11)

Chrysler expands Jeep Liberty recall

The Associated Press is reporting that Chrysler has added more than 137,000 Jeep Liberty SUVs to a March safety recall, bringing the total number of vehicles affected to nearly 347,000.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said lower-control arms in the rear suspension can rust and break, possibly causing the vehicles to crash. However, the company says it knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem. The recall involves vehicles in states where salt is used to clear ice and snow from the roads, including those sold or registered in: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.

[Involved in a car crash due to a manufacturer's defect? Contact the Cole Legal Group]

Chrysler said Monday that it will inspect the parts and replace them free if needed.

In March, the company said it was recalling about 200,000 Libertys from the 2004 and 2005 model years for the problem. Now it has added the 2006 and 2007 model years.

Vehicles covered by the recall were built from July 3, 2003, through June 29, 2007.

The company told NHTSA that as of February it had received no complaints about Liberty control arms from the 2006 or 2007 model years. But since April it has received eight reports of the problem, all from salt-belt states.

The company plans to notify owners of affected vehicles by the end of June. Customers with questions can call Chrysler at 800-853-1403.

__________________
source: USA Today (AP, 6/11)

Used-car buyers should heed recalls

More than 80,000 used vehicles in Ohio that were advertised for sale online last year had open recalls, which can pose safety risks to both auto buyers and motorists with whom they share the road, according to a recent study.

Repairing recalled parts is essential to the performance, safety and resale value of used vehicles. But about 2.7 million used vehicles across the country that were placed for sale on the Internet in 2011 had open recalls, according to a study by Carfax, a Virginia-based company that provides vehicle-history data.

Many sellers do not divulge that their vehicles require repairs, and many buyers do not know their purchases have defects. Auto experts said consumers should do their homework whenever they buy a used vehicle to determine whether it needs repairs at a dealer.

“People need to realize these are safety issues,” said Chris Basso, public relations manager with Carfax. “By not getting them fixed, you are putting your family and other people who you are on the road with at-risk.”

In Ohio last year, about 83,000 cars with open recalls were available for sale online, according to Carfax; that was up from 50,000 cars in 2009.

Vehicles sold online represent only a portion of all used vehicles on the market.

The online listings are “just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Basso said many used car dealers and individual sellers do not disclose the fact that their vehicles have defects.

[If you've been involved in an accident due in part to a manufacturer's defect, contact The Cole Legal Group]

Auto sellers have no legal obligation to divulge unfixed recall issues, and it is not against the law to sell vehicles with defects, Basso said.

But auto manufacturers go to considerable lengths to tell car owners of recalls, he said, because defective parts can cause vehicles to malfunction or they can lead to costly damage.

Auto makers fix recall problems for free, so there are no reasons — financial or otherwise — for ignoring the warnings, Basso said.

After buying used vehicles, consumers should contact the closest local dealer that sells their brand of car or truck to determine if there are any recall issues they need to resolve, said Jim Mitchell, executive director of the Ohio Independent Auto Dealer’s Association.

“Just give them the (vehicle identification number) to see if there are any open recalls,” Mitchell said. “If there are, get them fixed, because it is to their benefit and safety to do so.”

Owners can research recalls online at websites such as carfax.com and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s site, nhtsa.gov.

_________________
source: Dayton Daily News (Frolik, 6/3)

Honda recall: Acura TL sedans have potential fluid leak

Honda recall involves nearly 53,000 Acuras from 2007 and 2008. Deteriorating power-steering hoses sparked the Honda recall.

Honda's luxury line, Acura, has issued a voluntarily recall on all 2007 and 2008 TL sedans due to a potential fluid leak caused by worn out power steering hoses.

Acura says there are some 52,615 cars affected by the recall in the U.S. alone.

According to the automaker the power steering hoses on the affected cars may have deteriorated over time, causing a fluid leak to develop.

Leaking power steering fluid could lead to loss of power steering assistance. Furthermore, if the fluid leaks onto a catalytic converter or other parts of the exhaust system it may result in smoke or, in the worst case, fire.

[Call a Texas Product Liability Lawyer to help if you've been involved in an automotive accident]

Acura is making the announcement to encourage owners to take their cars to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification of the recall directly from the automaker. Mailed notification to customers will begin in June.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is yet to list the latest Honda recall on its website but concerned TL owners can gather more information by visiting the webpage www.recalls.acura.com or by contacting Acura on (800) 382-2238 and selecting option 4.

So far, no crashes, injuries or fires have been reported related to this issue.

___________________
source: Christian Science Monitor (Vijayenthiran, 5/17)