January 22nd, 2009 Roberts & Roberts
Millions of Motorists Continue to Buckle Up
Nine of ten Texas motorists are continuing to buckle up, thanks to almost a decade of annual campaigns conducted by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) urging drivers and passengers to fasten their safety belts.
A new survey completed by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) indicates that 91.2 percent of drivers and front seat passengers in Texas are abiding by state law to buckle up. It is the third year in a row that the Texas safety belt use rate has topped 90 percent.
“We are extremely pleased that Texas is one of only 11 states in the nation where more than 90 percent of motorists have gotten the message to buckle up,” said Terry Pence, director of TxDOT’s Traffic Safety Section. “Our ongoing challenge is to reach the drivers and passengers who still aren’t in the habit of using safety belts, particularly those who drive or ride in pickups.”
TTI’s survey found that drivers and passengers of pickup trucks are the least likely to buckle up. While an estimated 88 percent of pickup drivers comply with state law, pickup passengers are lagging behind. Observers found that only 78 percent of passengers in pickups use safety belts, even though required by law.
Researchers say the state has made steady progress to convince the state’s 15 million licensed drivers and their passengers to buckle up.
“When we first conducted a safety belt survey in 1985 in 12 Texas cities, only 14 percent of drivers and passengers were using safety belts,” said Katie Womack, a senior research scientist with TTI’s Center for Transportation Safety. “After the safety belt law was enacted in 1985, the usage rate jumped to 65 percent, and it’s continued to go up, hitting the 90% mark for the first time in 2006.”
TxDOT attributes the steady rise in safety belt use in recent years to the annual Click It or Ticket campaign, which combines extensive public service announcements with stepped-up law enforcement efforts each May. As a result of the surge in safety belt use in Texas since 2001, federal officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimate that 1,600 lives have been saved, 37,000 injuries have been prevented and economic savings have reached $6.6 billion.
According to NHTSA, safety belt use doubles the chances of surviving a serious crash. It also can prevent motorists from receiving a fine of up to $200.
(original story can be found at http://www.dot.state.tx.us/news/063-2008.htm)
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January 22nd, 2009 Roberts & Roberts
The popular cold remedy Vicks VapoRub may cause airway inflammation that can restrict breathing in infants and toddlers, a new study says.
Doctors at Wake Forest University started their study after treating an 18-month-old girl who had developed severe respiratory distress after the salve had been put directly under her nose to relieve cold symptoms.
“The company is really clear that you don’t put it in the nose, and you never use it in kids under 2,” said lead researcher Dr. Bruce K. Rubin, professor and vice chair for research at Wake Forest’s Department of Pediatrics. “Sure enough, when we stopped all the medicine, the child got much better very quickly.”
Rubin’s experience prompted him to see if there had been other similar cases. “We encountered a few others that appeared to develop problems after using Vicks VapoRub. Parents never volunteered it, because they always thought it is just something you buy over-the-counter, and it’s not a real medicine, because you just rub it on, after all,” he said.
Rubin said Vicks VapoRub can make some adults feel better without really making them better. “For kids, because it can induce some inflammation, even a little bit, that little bit might be enough to tip over a child to having problems,” he said.
The findings were published in the January issue of the journal Chest.
To test whether Vicks VapoRub could cause respiratory distress, the researchers conducted experiments with ferrets. The animals were chosen because they have airways similar to human airways, Rubin said.
The researchers found that Vicks VapoRub increased mucus production by up to 59 percent; the ability to clear mucus was reduced by 36 percent.
David Bernens, a spokesman for Proctor and amp; Gamble, the makers of Vicks VapoRub, doesn’t think one incident involving one child means that the product is unsafe.
“The product is safe and effective when used as directed,” he said. “To say it was the Vicks VapoRub that caused the respiratory distress — I’m not sure we have made that link yet.”
Dr. James A. L. Mathers Jr., president of the American College of Chest Physicians, said in an association news release: “Parents should consult with a physician before administering any over-the-counter medicine to infants and young children. Furthermore, the American College of Chest Physicians and several other health-care organizations have concluded that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines can be harmful for infants and young children and are, therefore, not recommended.”
In October, major manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines should not be used by children younger than 4 years old.
Dr. Daniel Craven, a pediatric pulmonologist at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, said parents shouldn’t use Vicks VapoRub, because it has no medicinal value and may even be dangerous.
“Previous research has failed to demonstrate any respiratory benefits of VapoRub, and conscientious pediatricians have thus usually tried to dissuade families from spending money on this and similarly ineffective therapies,” Craven said. “Although the findings are someone limited, this study raises the possibility that this product may not just be ineffective, but possibly might have adverse respiratory consequences — particularly if there is an intense exposure — as when it is applied directly under the nostrils.”
More information
For more on children and colds, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians.
(original story can be found on KLTV.COM)
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 22nd, 2009 Roberts & Roberts
By Lakecia Shockley, lshockley@kltv.com
More than 125 products have now been recalled in a salmonella-and-peanuts investigation that just keeps getting bigger. All were made with peanut paste or peanut butter made at a Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, GA. That plant has suspended production.
How local stores are making sure to keep East Texans safe?
“America’s love for eating peanut butter, in some cases, is biting back,” said Buck Farrar, an Environmental Health Supervisor.
“The chills, fever, headache, diarrhea, those are your classic symptoms,” said Farrar. “Obviously, the elderly, the young, and immuno compromised are most affected.”
He says salmonella can be dangerous, even deadly, but…
“We have had no reports of any people that think they’ve been infected with this salmonella from those sources,” said Farrar.
The nationwide salmonella outbreak is now linked to 485 illnesses and six deaths across 43 states. More than 120 products have been recalled, like Austin Peanut Butter Crackers. Even more recalls are expected to come.
At Brookshire’s Grocery Store, mangers tell us they’ve had to pull 50 to 60 Austin Crackers from their shelves. They’ve also had to pull Luna and Clif Peanut Butter Bars from their shelves and Super One’s.”
We called Kroger’s and Alberston’s Wednsday. They said that as of right now, they haven’t had to pull any products from their shelves, and there is another peanut butter favorite that we wanted to make sure is not on the contaminated list. Peanut butter girl scout cookies.
“They are absolutely safe. There is in no way any connection with the Peanut Butter Corp.,” said Tina Shepard with Girl Scouts of America. “We have been basically guaranteed by our bakers that they don’t use any products from there.”
What is on the list? Click on the Know More on Seven link and find the recall banner where you can see all the recalled products.
(original story can be found on KLTV.COM)
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January 14th, 2009 Roberts & Roberts
Article Reveals How to Reduce Teenage Wrecks by 16.5% in Just One Hour…
Teenagers have the highest rate of car wrecks of any age group. Unfortunately, Kentucky is no exception. In fact, I was listening to the radio yesterday and the lead story was that nine teenagers had died this year in car wrecks in Bell County. Just think about that number, 9 teenagers from one small county in Kentucky in just one year. According to the 2006 census, the population of Bell County, Kentucky is only 29,000 people, of which there are only 6500 under the age of 18. The total population of Bell County High School is about 900, that means that 1% of the student body died in car wrecks in 2008. Tragic.
So, is there anything we can do to reduce the number of teenagers injured or killed in Kentucky in car wrecks and crashes? Well, according to a recent study published in the journal Journal of Sleep Medicine, there just might be. In the study, 10,000 Kentucky students from grades 6 through 12 where tracked on their sleep habits and daytime functioning, including auto mishaps. The surveys were completed twice — first in 1998, when school started at 7:30 a.m., and then again in 1999, when the start time had been moved to 8:30 a.m.
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal story on the recent study “Letting teens sleep a little more by starting the school day a bit later may lower their odds for car-crash injury or death, a new study finds. The researchers found a 16.5 percent drop in auto accident rates for teen drivers when local high schools moved the start of classes from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.”
The study indicated that sleep deprivation causes 100,000 wrecks per year and that half of those are drivers 16-25. The study further found that “The average teenager probably needs at least eight hours and probably closer to nine hours of sleep, Danner said. And as little as an hour less sleep can have a cumulative effect. That means that by the end of the week, teens are as impaired as if they had stayed up for 24 hours straight, Danner explained”
hans
p.s. One of the reasons that the death rate of teens in car wrecks is so high is because they usually travel in groups. While the recent fatality in Bell County, Kentucky (Brooke Lambert a cheerleader at Middlesboro High School) was a single death, four teens died earlier in December in a collision with a coal truck on U.S. 25 East as a result of slick roads and four other teens died in a fiery crash on Kentucky 92 in January. Police said their car hit a tree.
(original story can be found www.poppelawfirm.com)
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January 13th, 2009 Roberts & Roberts
By: A Staff Writer
A recent investigation by the Kansas City Star newspaper has found that 1,400 people may have died in head-on or frontal collisions because their front air bags did not deploy. According to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, it was a phenomenon that baffled traffic accident investigators.
For example, when Atlanta wife and mother Brooke Katz died three months pregnant, police officers who recall that violent crash also say that they thought it was “curious” that Katz’s 2005 Dodge Caravan’s air bags had not deployed. The Kansas City Star’s investigation reportedly found that this didn’t only happen in Katz’s accident, but happened in hundreds of traffic accidents. In fact, here’s an interesting statistic.
The newspaper found that more people had died over the last six years from air bags not deploying than all those who died from injuries caused by air bags that deployed easily or forcefully. Not only that – the newspaper also reports that only 300 people died since 1990 from forceful deployment of airbags. But the body count is a whopping 1,400 when it came to those who died because their front airbags did not deploy at all. What’s more, the death count rose to 1,900 when the Star took into account side and rear impact crashes.
This investigation has baffled even safety advocates, who wonder why these airbags are not deploying the way they are supposed to. To put things in perspective 1,400 people died in head-on crashes over the last six years even when their airbags deployed and federal government estimates show that deployment of airbags in fact saved 15,000 lives over this six-year period.
While all that is good news, 1,400 lives were still lost. The question is: Why did the airbags not do their job and why did those people have to die. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration officials are in disagreement with the Star’s analysis, calling it flawed and a “disservice to the public.”
The public will be better served by knowing the truth about the vehicles they drive. The public will be better off when auto manufacturers and federal government agencies focus on answering puzzling, unanswered questions about products that seem inadequate or defective.
Katz’s family has reportedly filed a product liability and wrongful death lawsuit against the auto manufacturer. Hopefully, details and facts will emerge from that lawsuit, which will tell the public the truth about these airbags.
(original story can be located at www.californiainjuryblog.com)
Posted in Defective Products | No Comments »
