Total Injury

Tampa Bay Rays relief pitcher Al Reyes was the latest victim of a police Tasering, after officers intervened to stop a fight between him and another patron of the Hyde Park Cafe in Tampa.  The other patron punched Reyes in the face after the two exchanged words, after which Reyes began spitting blood and swinging his arms wildly, according to the ESPN news report.

When Reyes would not settle down and continued spitting blood, police used a Taser to knock the 230-pound pitcher to the ground, then shocked him again when he disobeyed commands to remain on the ground.

Pharmaceutical Company Merck & Co. announced an “agreement” of $4.85 billion for pending personal injury suits concerning complications from the arthritis painkiller VIOXX, according to the Associated Press. The decision comes as a surprise to many, since Merck officials announced as recently as last month that the company planned to argue each case individually in court.

The agreement will become official if 85% of the plaintiffs in about 26,000 lawsuits (including 265 class action suits) agree to drop their cases and accept financial compensation.

VIOXX, released in 1999, was wildly popular as a pain reliever for sufferers of arthritis. Merck shocked the country by removing the drug from the market in late 2004, while it was still in its heyday, because of scientific evidence that the drug doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Though Merck maintained that VIOXX was only potentially harmful to those who had used it for more than 18 months, scientists generally dismissed this claim. An estimated 80,000-140,000 heart attacks and strokes have been attributed to the drug, some of which were fatal.

To qualify for receiving settlement money, claimants must have filed their cases by November 8^th  and have proof that they ingested at least 30 pills, that they suffered a heart attack or stroke, and that they began taking the pills at least two weeks prior to the injury. Individual payments will depend on severity of injury and length of time the drug was used.

A defense attorney on the case is reportedly pleased with the decision, which he believes is the largest in the history of the industry. Merck is apparently emphasizing that this is not a class action settlement, but an “agreement,” a distinction which allows the company to admit no fault.

Early predictions suggested that Merck could face $50 billion dollars in legal costs if it chose to argue all the cases pending.

The New England Patriots were caught cheating in the first week of the 2007 season. Now, Newsday reports that a New Jersey man is suing the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick for more that $184 million.

The Patriots were caught “illegally” videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals. The NFL has already fined Belichick $500,000, fined the team $250,000, and stripped the team of a first round draft choice next year for violating the “integrity of the game.”

Attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afron are suing for damages as part of a class-action suit over what they call the Patriots’ history of cheating during Jets-Patriots games.

Gentlemen ….. Good luck.

Wal-Mart officials said they are asking toy suppliers to submit recent safety documentation or re-test their products in response to the wave of recalled products coming from China. The Washington Post reports that the company has instituted a five-step plan to improve the safety of its products, called the Toy Safety Net Program. It has also pledged to work with the Toy Industry Association on new safety standards and help Chinese leaders who are implementing new safety procedures.

About 80 percent of the toys sold in the United States are made in China. Wal-Mart controls about one-third of the toy retail market in the U.S.

Wal-Mart Watch, a watchdog group, said the retailer’s efforts do not go far enough, saying “Wal-Mart’s not addressing the larger problem of why Chinese toy suppliers are cutting corners with lead paint and melamine. It's because they're under enormous pressure from buyers like Wal-Mart, and they're sacrificing child safety to keep costs low.”

According to the International Herald Tribune, Home Depot has agreed to pay nearly $10 million in penalties and investigation costs to settle a lawsuit alleging it mishandled hazardous waste from its California stores.

Home Depot came under investigation after a hazardous waste container exploded at a store in Marina Del Ray. Investigators found various chemicals had been mixed inside a 55-gallon drum.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that Home Depot routinely collected hazardous wastes in large containers for offsite disposal.  Haulers, hired by the company, improperly stored and labeled waste and did not keep proper records.

A few days ago, I wrote that Cao Wenzhuang, a Chinese drug and food safety department head had been sentenced to death, suspended for two years.  His sentence could have been commuted if he had shown he had reformed.  Reuters reports that, today, the Chinese government executed him. Zheng Xiaoyu (as spelled by the Xinhua new agency) was executed for taking bribes and dereliction of duty, according to the Xinhua. 

Zheng was head of the pharmaceutical registration department, having power to approve pharmaceutical production.  The Reuters report says he accepted bribes from eight companies totaling 6.5 million yuan ($850,000).

The Supreme People’s Court said the sentence was imposed due to “Zheng Xiaoyu's grave irresponsibility in pharmaceutical safety inspection and failure to conscientiously carry out his duties seriously damaged the interests of the state and people.”

Reuters speculated that the unusually harsh sentence and its prompt enforcement reflect pressure on Beijing from domestic and international alarm about consumer product safety. Several products have recently faced recall in the United States over safety concerns.

A former department head of China’s drug regulation agency was sentenced to death for bribery. The same day, United States regulators ordered a recall of three more Chinese-made products.

The safety of Chinese products sold in the United States has recently been in question.

Canada’s Globe and Mail reports that Cao Wenzhuang, a department director in the State Food and Drug Administration, was given a death sentence for accepting bribes and neglecting his official duties. His death sentence was suspended for two years. The Globe and Mail says such penalties are usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.

Cao was head of the pharmaceutical registration department, having power to approve pharmaceutical production. He was charged with accepting $307,000 (U.S.) from two medical companies that seeking approval to sell their products.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently announced three recalls, covering jewelry that could cause lead poisoning and a magnetic building set and plastic castles with small parts, which it said could choke children. Other toys, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, were recalled due to paint containing lead. All these products were made in China.

The BBC reports that studies show that the interactive overhead projectors may be harmful to students and teachers. Documents obtained by an industry whistleblower from the British Health and Safety Executive, through a Freedom of Information Act request, say users “should make sure that direct beam viewing of the optical output from this equipment is both controlled and restricted to no more than a few tens of seconds at a time.”

The government documents say that while few people could stand to look directly at a projector’s lamp for enough time to cause harm, the light beam could damage a viewer’s peripheral retina. A straw poll of teaching representatives in Wiltshire, England shows only a few have been told how to use whiteboards safely.

Activists are seeking, at least, a warning label.

The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology recently held a public meeting in Washington on the safety of nanotechnologies. According to MSNBC, a report by Terry Davies says that it’s time to start discussing safety laws to protect the public from risks that may develop in the future.

Nanotechnologies involve materials and devices, some of which are hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Nano materials are measured in nanometers, a billionth of a meter. Some uses of nanotechnology already includes stain-resistant pants and suntan lotions. The particles in these products a less than 100 nanometers in diameter. “A sheet of paper, in comparison, is a whopping 100,000 nanonmeters thick.”

What worries some experts are unpredictable behaviours of nano-scale materials. MSNBC reports that even subtle changes in the size of particles can precipitate wildly different changes in the basic properties of those materials, including their toxicity.

Davies said that “We’ve learned with biotech and nuclear power, if there are not adequate safeguards, the public is going to resist the technology and it won't meet its potential.”

Our affiliate, Total Divorce, took a place in blogging history yesterday by matching all donations made during the first day of the historic Blog Catalog Donors Choose movement to use social media for good.  Hundreds of bloggers across the country and even outside the U.S. have been blogging this week to encourage their readers to participate in the challenge, which allows donors to select specific elementary school projects to fund.

Read more about the Total Divorce donation here:

Total Divorce Joins Blog Catalog Fundraising Challenge for Schoolchildren Across America