After a tough deliberation, we are finally able to announce the winners of our fourth annual bicycle safety public service announcement (PSA) contest:

• In the middle school category, the first-place winner is Makaila Roberts, 7^th grade student at West Edgecombe Middle School in Rocky Mount;
• In the high school category, the first-place winner is Alex Hendrix, a 10^th grade homeschool student in Wake Forest.

And if creative talent weren’t enough, the students are also articulate:

“I wanted to focus on the importance of helmet safety for my PSA, but I didn’t want to bore my audience with just plain facts,” said Alex, who’s been making movies since he was 11. “So, I decided to make my PSA more of a story, rather than a safety alert video. Ultimately, I want people to realize that helmet safety is extremely important. I know wearing one may make you look funny or feel uncomfortable, but it’s a lot better than being on a hospital bed wishing you had protected your head.”

Makaila agrees with Alex and wants her PSA to teach viewers a lesson. “I hope people realize you are never too young or too old to follow safety rules and wear a helmet. Many teens focus on appearance and what others think about them, and this video will help people recognize that safety is more important than what you look like.”

PSAs were judged on students’ abilities to analyze the topic and produce a quality video. As the first place winners, Alex and Makaila had the choice between an Apple MacBook with movie-making software or a $1,500 gift card—both chose the gift cards. Alex plans on using his prize to upgrade his current video equipment.

The winning students’ schools also will receive monetary donations.

“I am definitely going to do something related to filmmaking in the years to come,” Makaila said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s directing, acting, writing, or editing, because they’re things that I love to do. Only the people who made impactful movies are remembered. I want to be somebody like that. Somebody people won’t forget. I want to impact the world, and I am now one step closer to fulfilling my dream.”

(Watch the winning videos here:  2012 HensonFuerst PSA Contest Winners)

“I would like to thank HensonFuerst for giving students like me the opportunity to use our talents for a great cause and to help us grow in our dreams as aspiring filmmakers,” Alex said. “I would also like to encourage all of the other contestants who entered to continue to produce such excellent videos!”

The law firm also would like to congratulate the following students:

• 2^nd Place middle school winner is Jonathan Brechbiel of Raleigh;
• 2^nd Place high school winner is Mark Adkins of Wake Forest;
• 3^rd Place middle school winners are Karen Adkins & Lauren Brown of Wake Forest;
• 3^rd Place high school winners are Jacob Bell & Jedidiah Aurillo of Louisburg.

You can watch all of this year’s entries on our website at www.LawMed.com/contest.

About the HensonFuerst Annual Bicycle Safety Contest

Four years ago, the firm represented the husband of a local cyclist who was killed by a motorist while riding her bike. Members of the firm pledged all of the attorney fees from the case to fund bike safety awareness programs, such as the PSA contest and a series of cycling safety videos. For more details about the contest, visit www.LawMed.com/contest.

According to an article in The New York Times, broken legs are a “common” injury among toddlers who ride down slides (especially spiral slides) on their parents’ laps. What happens is that a child’s sneaker gets caught on the side of the slide, and the gravitational weight of the parent pushes the leg past the breaking point.

This may be one of those counterintuitive cases when a child is safer by himself. If a foot gets caught while the child is sliding alone, he can just stop moving or twist around until it comes free. But when a child is sitting in an adult lap, the force of the adult’s weight behind him ends up breaking his leg.

The injury is surprising enough, but parents are shocked when they find out that hospitals consider this type of injury common…and yet the parents never heard of the risk. A study at a single New York hospital found that in an 11-month period, nearly 14% of pediatric leg fractures involved toddlers riding down a slide with a parent.

According to the article, this is how easily the fracture can happen:

Andy Dworkin, a former journalist who is now a medical student in Portland, Ore., said his son Felix, then 18 months, was playing with a toddler friend at an elementary school where they were drawn to a blue slide. Felix rode down first, on the lap of his mother, but his rubber-soled shoe caught on the slide and he started to scream when he got off the slide.

Another mother, at the top of the slide with her own 17-month-old, quickly slid down with her son to try to help. But soon that little boy was crying as well. At the emergency room, both boys were found to have fractures, and they were fitted with orange and blue casts.

WHAT TO DO

Sliding Board Fracture Prevention with Dr. Ed Holt

Experts suggest that the best way to prevent slide-induced broken legs in toddlers is to allow children to slide by themselves. Of course, the children should be given instructions and be supervised. For very young children, place them on the slide at the halfway point, with the adult at the side of the slide.

If you must ride down the slide with your child, remove his or her shoes and make sure that the child’s legs don’t touch the sides or sliding surface.

Dr. Edward Holt, an orthopedic surgeon at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, says that the fracture is entirely preventable. He has created a warning poster for pediatrician offices, and a YouTube video for parents.

“I’m not saying we need to make the entire world out of rubber and insulate kids,” [Dr. Holt] said. “But this is something that is so totally predictable and preventable. That’s why I want to get the word out this one could go away.”

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  Surprising Risk for Toddlers

You can also see the YouTube video here:  Sliding Board Fracture Prevention

The article—which talks about the need for hospital workers to clean their hands to prevent bacterial infections—was written by Suzanne C. Gordon, coeditor of the Culture and Politics of Healthcare Work series at Cornell University Press, and coeditor of the book First Do Less Harm: Confronting Inconvenient Problems in Patient Safety. Many infections can be spread from patient to patient when doctors and nurses don’t wash their hands before examining someone. Many hospitals have instigated hand-washing compliance programs, most have disinfectant dispensers in each room and/or in hallways, and some have even installed video cameras to make sure hospital staff know that they are being watched. There is even a program that suggests that patients watch to see whether doctors and nurses wash their hands, and if not, to request that they do so.

We’ve heard the advice about asking medical staff to please wash their hands; it is nothing new. What makes this story so compelling is that Ms. Gordon highlights exactly how difficult following this simple advice can be for patients. She tells the story of her own hospital stay after an emergency appendectomy.

“…[the nurse] grabbed the pair of dirty slipper/socks I’d been wearing, crumpled them up, and threw them in the garbage can. Then, without using the cleansing gel dispenser hanging on the wall in my room, or the soap and water in the bathroom, she went over to my IV and began fiddling with it.”

Ms. Gordon admits to being intimidated about asking the nurse to wash her hand because, as she noted: “This woman had the power to hurt me and I was afraid to anger her.” After raising the issue with another nurse (and begging her not to say anything to the first nurse):

“…the nurse who had not cleaned her hands entered my room. She stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, and glared at me. In what I, in my sick state, perceived to be a very aggressive tone, she declared, “I want you to know that I am very well aware of the need to take universal precautions and that I have my hands in hot water so much that they crack and hurt.” Then she turned and left the room.”

She requested that the offending nurse not be assigned to her, and the hospital obliged. If not, there could indeed have been repercussions if the nurse took offense, was angry, and was prone to revenge.

Even doctors who become patients can have a difficult time telling other doctors to wash their hands, even when they know it is in their best interests to do so, and even when there are signs in the room saying “Ask me if I cleaned my hands.” As one physician said of his experience when his wife was hospitalized:

“’I’m a pretty senior physician and a patient safety officer,’ he recalled. ‘This is my business and I hesitated. I finally did ask the resident and he said he had used the gel but would be glad to use it again. He was perfectly pleasant about it. But that has not always been my experience as a patient or family member. Sometimes people are agreeable. Sometimes they seem to resent the question. It’s really ludicrous to suggest that this should be up to patients,’ [the doctor] concluded.”

I think we can all agree on that point. Why is it up to patients to make sure that hospitals follow this simple and common safety procedure?

Ms. Gordon suggests two ideas about how health care personnel can help patients (and each other). First, to make sure that patients know that reminding staff about washing their hands is part of the patient’s “job,” that by doing so they can keep themselves and others safer. (There are many people who would gather the courage to ask about hand washing if they thought it would help the patient in the next bed, even while they might not speak up for themselves.)

Second, hospitals could create a “magic word” that would immediately trigger hand washing, without having to worry about how to phrase the request. It would make it easier for anyone to ask, even patients. As Ms. Gordon says in the article:

“But the only way this will work is if hospital and health care administrators make it crystal clear that they will back up anyone who challenges a person senior to themselves to enforce hand hygiene and that expressing such concern is not only an acceptable but expected action.

My suggestion for the magic word? It is simply ‘Hands!’”

So simple. Even a very sick person being treated in a hospital could remember that. And if doctors and nurses could learn what it means, then the world could be a healthier place. JAMA is one of the most respected, widely read medical journals in the world. With luck, hospitals will make this article required reading for all personnel. On behalf of patients, we would like to say “Thank you, Ms. Gordon!”

Article source: Gordon, SC. Ask Me If I Cleaned My Hands. JAMA. 2012;307(15):1591-1592.

According to an article in The New York Times, researchers bought and tested packaged raw chicken products from 10 major cities across the United States. They discovered the bacteria E. coli in 48 percent of the chicken, an indicator of fecal contamination.

“Most consumers do not realize that feces are in the chicken products they purchase,” said Dr. Neal D. Barnard, president of the group [Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine]. “Food labels discuss contamination as if it is simply the presence of bacteria, but people need to know that it means much more than that.”

While the researchers—and most consumers—are surprised by the high levels of contamination, other food experts are unimpressed by the study findings.

“What’s surprising to me is that they didn’t find more,” said Dr. Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. “Poop gets into your food, and not just into meat — produce is grown in soil fertilized with manure, and there’s E. coli in that, too.”

Also unsurprising is the response by the National Chicken Council, the trade group representing chicken producers. They claim that the results were based on only a tiny fraction of the 42 million pounds of chicken in grocery stores. Also, the E. coli found in chicken isn’t the super-dangerous variety that is sometimes found in undercooked beef. Still, food-borne bacteria should never be underestimated as a potential source of illness.

This research will likely spur other studies to confirm or disprove these results, as well as additional investigation into where in the process the bacteria could be introduced–during slaughter, processing, packaging, or storage. No doubt, this will not be the final word.

But the best possible immediate effect will be to remind all of us to be careful when handling and cooking raw chicken.

“The main thing,” said [Dr. Catherine N. Cutter, an associate professor and food safety extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University], “is that consumers properly handle a raw chicken and avoid cross contamination as much as possible and cook it thoroughly.”

How to Safely Handle Raw Chicken

According to the USDA, here are the government’s guidelines for preventing food-borne illness from raw chicken, meats, and seafood:

The key to preventing illness at home, in a restaurant, at a church picnic, or anywhere else is to prevent the bacteria from growing to high levels and to destroy the bacteria through cooking to a safe minimum internal temperature. Follow these guidelines for safe food preparation:

CLEAN: Wash Hands and Surfaces Often

• Wash hands with warm soapy water for 20 seconds before and after handling food and after using the bathroom, changing diapers, and handling pets.
• Wash utensils, cutting boards, dishes, and countertops with hot soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next item.
• Consider using paper towels to clean kitchen surfaces. If you use cloth towels, wash them often in the hot cycle of your washing machine.

SEPARATE: Don’t Cross-contaminate

• Separate raw meat, poultry, and seafood from other foods in your grocery shopping cart and in your refrigerator.
• If possible, use one cutting board for fresh produce and a separate one for raw meat, poultry, and seafood.
• Always wash cutting boards, dishes, countertops, and utensils with hot soapy water after they come in contact with raw meat, poultry, and seafood.
• Never place cooked food on a plate that previously held raw meat, poultry, or seafood.

COOK: Cook to Safe Temperatures
Use a clean food thermometer when measuring the internal temperature of meat, poultry, casseroles, and other foods to make sure they have reached a safe minimum internal temperature:

• Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming. For reasons of personal preference, consumers may choose to cook meat to higher temperatures.
• Cook all raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal to an internal temperature of 160 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
• Cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
• Stuffed poultry is not recommended. Cook stuffing separately to 165 °F.
• Egg dishes, casseroles to 160 °F.
• Fish should reach 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
• Bring sauces, soups, and gravy to a boil when reheating.
• Reheat other leftovers thoroughly to at least 165 °F.

CHILL: Refrigerate Promptly

• Keep food safe at home, refrigerate promptly and properly. Refrigerate or freeze perishables, prepared foods, and leftovers within 2 hours (1 hour if temperatures are above 90 °F).
• Freezers should register 0 °F or below and refrigerators 40 °F or below.
• Thaw food in the refrigerator, in cold water, or in the microwave. Foods should not be thawed at room temperature. Foods thawed in the microwave or in cold water must be cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature immediately after thawing.
• Marinate foods in the refrigerator.
• Divide large amounts of leftovers into shallow containers for quick cooling in the refrigerator.

Resources

To read the full story in The New York Times, click here: 48% of Chicken in Small Sample Has E. Coli

To learn more about food borne illness, watch our videos:

Foodborne illness

Filing a Foodborne Illness Lawsuit

This is one of those freaky stories that makes a person say, “Seriously?”

According to an article on ScienceDaily, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital have identified six cases involving people who accidentally ate bristles of a wire grill brush. The patients hate eaten meat cooked on a grill that had been cleaned with a wire brush immediately prior to cooking. In three cases, the bristles had lodged in the throat and were removed. In the other three cases, the bristles ended up in the abdomen:

In two patients, the wire perforated the small intestine and in the third, the wire perforated through the stomach and into the liver, and was surrounded by a large hepatic abscess. Surgery was performed in all three patients.

Dr. David Grand, a radiologist in the diagnostic imaging department at Rhode Island Hospital, said:

“Although foreign body ingestion is not a rare complaint in an emergency department, it is striking that in only 18 months we identified six separate episodes of wire bristle ingestion after eating grilled meat. The public should be aware of this potential danger.”

If you are a grill enthusiast, make sure to check the wire cleaning brush regularly to make sure that the bristles aren’t loose, broken, or otherwise likely to shed. An added precaution is to wipe down the grill after using the wire brush.

To read the full article on ScienceDaily, click here:  Danger of Grill Brushes Identified

Sports injuries can be acute (meaning they happen immediately, as from a fall or a blow)… or they can develop over time… or they can be as a result of reinjury of previous damage. All three types of injuries can be painful and prevent your child from playing sports or participating in other physical activities. Some injuries heal on their own, but others may require surgery or other medical intervention.

According to the website Pain.com, the most common types of acute injuries in children are bruises, scrapes, strains, and sprains. Older children are more likely to suffer a bone fracture than younger children; and they are also more likely to tear a ligament, an injury that may require surgical repair. Often, the only symptom experienced will be pain in the injured area that impairs movement. An examination by a doctor may be needed to tell if the injury is a fracture, sprain, strain, or torn ligament.

Some sports injuries gradually develop over time. Many of these injuries, such as knee damage, “swimmer’s shoulder,” “gymnast wrist,” and “Little League elbow,” involve joint damage and inflammation in the joints due to repeated movements in those joints. These are called “overuse” injuries, and they are on the rise.

According to a ScienceDaily article, Johns Hopkins experts estimate that 30 million to 45 million U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 18 participate in organized sports, many of whom are involved in specialized, intensive year-round training. This can result in long-term injuries, some of which may not even surface until the child reaches adulthood.

Preventing Injuries During Youth Sports

According to information provided by the University of Denver, here are some ways to prevent sports injuries:

• Enroll your child in organized sports through programs that are committed to injury prevention.
• Make sure coaches and support staff are CPR and First Aid certified and the program has emergency protocols in place.
• Make sure your child’s coaches are educated on proper use of equipment, that equipment is maintained, and that coaches enforce rules regarding proper equipment use.
• Invest in proper gear for your child’s selected sport. Safety gear that is too big or too small won’t be as effective as gear that fits properly. Teach your child how to properly care for and use sports and safety equipment.
• Include warm-ups and cool-downs as part of your child’s sport participation. Warm-up exercises help minimize the likelihood of muscle strain and make the body’s tissues more flexible. Cool-down exercises help loosen muscles that tighten during exercise.
• Encourage hydration during sport participation. Whether you choose water or sports drinks, ensure your child hydrates frequently while active.
• Ensure your child wears sunscreen and a hat (when possible) during outside activities.
• Children should play a variety of sports to encourage cross-training.
• Dr. Amy Valasek, a pediatric sports medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, recommends that children engage in no more than five days per week of sport-specific training to allow the body to recover.

Treating Injuries

For immediate treatment of sprains and strains, remember RICE

• Rest. Reduce or stop using the injured area for at least 48 hours.
• Ice. Put an ice pack on the injured area for 20 minutes at a time, four to eight times per day. Wrap the ice pack in a towel prior to use.
• Compression. Consult your doctor on the best option to compress an injured area.
• Elevation. Keep the injured area elevated above the level of the heart to decrease swelling.

If an injury is not fully healed before a child returns to a sport, it is possible that the child will suffer a reinjury in the same area. It is important that the injury be allowed to heal, and that the child return to normal activity gradually to reduce the risk of reinjury. Even if the child is eager to return to playing a sport, he or she should take it slow and avoid overexertion.

Always consult your doctor regarding any severe injuries or injuries with prolonged swelling and/or pain.

And some final words of advice from Dr. Valasek:

“It’s important to remember that the main reason to engage children in sports is not to turn them into professional athletes, but to condition the whole body in a healthy way and instill a sense of discipline, responsibility and team work.”

Resources

To read the full article in ScienceDaily, click here:  Pediatricians Sound Alarm On Overuse Sports Injuries

To read the full article on Pain.com, click here:  National Youth Sports Safety Month

According to an article in the News & Observer, the city council voted 5-4 to pass the ban. The deciding vote was cast by Ed Harrison, an avid cyclist who has seen erratic driving by cell phone users. When asked about the most dangerous driving habit, Harrison said:

“[It] is not by people who are eating things or combing their hair or putting on lipstick. It’s by people who are talking on a cell phone and not seeing me.”

The new law, which will go into effect on June 1, applies to all streets in the town of Chapel Hill, including state-owned roads. Emergency calls will be permitted.

The city of Evanston, Illinois, has banned hand-held cell phones, and is considering adding hands-free phones to the ban. Still, in the two years since Evanston’s ban became law, accidents have decreased 17.6%.

That’s a pretty persuasive number!

To read the full article in the News & Observer, click here:  Chapel Hill Council Bans Cell-Phone Use

Celexa is in the class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which make more of the brain chemical serotonin available to brain cells. In August 2011, the FDA issued a Drug Safety Communication stating that citalopram should no longer be used at doses greater than 40 mg per day because it could cause potentially dangerous abnormalities in the electrical activity of the heart.

In this current release, the FDA recommends:

If you are currently taking more than 40 mg per day of Celexa or the generic version of the drug (citalopram), talk with your doctor about whether this FDA warning pertains to you, especially if you have heart problems. Do not stop taking the drug without advice from your physician—going cold-turkey from Celexa and other SSRIs can cause serious health problems. A doctor will know how to step you down from the drug safely.

An article in The New York Times highlighted the differences in how patients can be affected by generic versus name brand drugs. There are two women–Debbie and Diana–in very similar circumstances: Both were treated in a medical setting…both received an injection of the anti-nausea drug promethazine…both had side effects that caused gangrene…and both had a hand amputated. Horrifying outcomes, which could have been prevented. In fact, the drug warns of this possible injury on the label—a label neither woman could see because they were treated by injection. Both women sued the manufacturer for failing to warn about the risks of the injection.

That’s where the similarities stop. But the differences are what make this story so tragic. Debbie had received the generic version of the injected drug; Diana received the brand name version, Phenergan. Diana won a $6.8 million judgment against the drug maker, Wyeth. Debbie’s case was thrown out of court simply because she received a generic drug.

What?!?

The Supreme Court said that companies that make generic drugs aren’t liable for these kinds of injuries because the companies don’t have control over what was printed on the labels, and therefore cannot be sued by patients for the risks. As stated in The New York Times:

Now, what once seemed like a trivial detail — whether to take a generic or brand-name drug — has become the deciding factor in whether a patient can seek legal recourse from a drug company….

“Your pharmacists aren’t telling you, hey, when we fill this with your generic, you are giving up all of your legal remedies,” said Michael Johnson, a lawyer who represented Gladys Mensing, one of the patients who sued generic drug companies in last year’s Supreme Court case, Pliva v. Mensing. “You have a disparate impact between one class of people and another.”

Some organizations, including the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, are petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give generic manufacturers greater control over their labels.

But what can the average person do? Really, not much. In an emergency situation, you may not be in a mindset to understand or even consent to taking specific drugs. And there are many times when an insurance company may only approve a generic drug, which means that consumers don’t have a real choice about which version of a drug they take. We always recommend that people become educated consumers, but that can be difficult—if not impossible—to do in the pharmaceutical world.

Still, this issue is important to keep in mind. Ask questions when you can…ask for brand name drugs when you can.

Stay safe!

At HensonFuerst, we represent people who have been injured by drugs. To learn more about drug injury, visit our dedicated webpage at http://www.lawmed.com/DrugInjury/.

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  Generic Drugs Proving Resistant to Damage Suits

Believe it or not, heat stroke can happen in February with temperatures as low as 57 degrees.  But starting in March, when the sun gets stronger, the numbers begin to climb, with peak incidents occuring during the summer months.  These tragedies affect mostly infants and toddlers, but can happen to children of all ages.

Since 1998, over 520 children have died as a result of hyperthermia, with an average of 38 per year.  Sadly, about half of the children are forgotten when the driver arrives at a destination.  That driver becomes distracted and forgets he or she has a child in the back seat and continues their routine.   The rest were either playing in an unattended car and were unable to get out, or were intentionally left by an adult for “just a minute.”

To learn more about the dangers of leaving a child alone in a car, watch our video:

Preventing Hot Car Heat Injuries in Children