The agreement would allow Mexican freight trucks on U.S. highways, and this possibility has already generated controversy.  Several lawmakers are opposed to allowing Mexican trucks to freely operate on U.S. highways.  The concerns are not just for job losses in the United States, but also for the safety standards of these trucks.  According to lawmakers opposed to the agreement, the trucking safety culture in Mexico is vastly different from, and inferior to, that in the United States.  The trucking industry in Mexico is less regulated, and not subjected to the same number of inspections as here.

The Department of Transportation is moving to assuage concerns about trucking safety, by assuring Americans that Mexican trucks will be electronically monitored once they begin operating inside the United States, and that drivers will be subjected to random drug and alcohol tests.  Additionally, the Department of Transportation says it will ensure that Mexican drivers who operate inside the United States can speak English.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has a hard enough time inspecting trucks operated by American trucking companies, and keeping medically unfit and intoxicated truckers off our highways.  It’s hard to understand how the agency plans to ensure the safety of Mexican freight truck drivers who will now be allowed to operate here.

It’s not just the safety standards of trucking companies and truck drivers that is a question here.  It is also the fact that in Mexico, hijacking of commercial trucks is rampant, with more than 10,000 trucks being hijacked every year for narcotics trafficking.  It’s reasonable to fear that some of those trucks will find their way into the United States too.

The study was based on analysis of two-vehicle accidents between 1988 and 2007.  The results of the study have been published in the Traffic Injury Prevention Journal.  The researchers wanted to probe the gender factor in a traffic accident, although they were not specifically looking to see whether women make better drivers than men.  They were not expecting some of the findings.

The researchers expected that male drivers would be involved in more accidents, because male drivers account for 60% of all personal travel.  According to these estimates, the frequency of accidents involving male drivers should have been around 36%, and for female drivers, it should have been around 16%.

In contrast, the researchers found that in certain situations, female drivers were overrepresented by as much as 50%.  For instance, female drivers exceeded the accident frequency rate by more than 50% when both vehicles were driven by female motorists.  In some of the accident scenarios, female drivers exceeded the accident frequency rate by at least 25%.

These findings are intriguing to Los Angeles car accident lawyers because they point to the role of motorist exposure to different situations and their capacity to adequately react to these in accident prevention.  There are other factors besides drinking, speeding and distracted driving contributing to an accident.  Interactions between motorists are also a vital factor in preventing accidents.

About 26 out of the 33 stockholder claims filed by shareholders have been dismissed.  The memo dated July 7 by a U.S. District Judge in Los Angeles states that the lawsuits raised claims that were valid under Japanese law, and do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction.  Therefore, Japanese law should take precedence in these lawsuits.  The investors in these claims had purchased their Toyota shares on foreign exchanges.

In the complaint, investors claimed that Toyota concealed safety issues involving sudden and unintended acceleration in its vehicles.  Reports of unintended acceleration involving Toyota vehicles have been around for a while, but these really burst into the spotlight in 2008 after the death of a California family in an accident ultimately blamed on sudden acceleration of the car.

Since then, Toyota has recalled millions of cars for unintended acceleration problems.  The company has also been slapped with hundreds of personal injury and consumer fraud lawsuits.  The company’s stock price fell soon after in response to the crisis.

The investors, who include the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, claim that the Japanese automaker concealed documents that clearly showed that it was aware about these defects since as far back as 2000.  However those claims have now been dismissed.  Only seven claims that addressed misrepresentations about the sudden acceleration problems that Toyota made, have been allowed to proceed by the judge.

Premature infants suffer a number of health challenges which can include swallowing difficulties.  Such infants may be at risk of malnutrition because they tend to spit out most of the milk.  One way that parents and caregivers deal with this problem is by adding a thickening agent to the formula or breast milk.

SimplyThick is marketed as a thickening agent for use by infants, premature babies and senior citizens.  All these people may suffer from swallowing difficulties that can be helped by the use of thickening agents.  However, the Food and Drug Administration is now warning that premature babies may be at a high risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis from this product.

The Food and Drug Administration is aware of at least 15 reports of infants who fell ill after using the product.  At least two of these infants died.  Most of the necrotizing enterocolitis cases seem to have occurred when the baby was in the hospital, or had just been discharged from hospital.

The main ingredient in SimplyThick is xanthan gum, which is also found in most processed foods.  Adults and older children can easily digest xanthan gum, but pre-term babies may lack the intestinal development to tolerate xanthan gum.

The Food and Drug Administration is warning parents of premature infants to avoid using the product if the baby is still in the hospital, or has been discharged from the hospital less than a month ago.  If your baby has consumed SimplyThick, look out for symptoms of necrotizing enterocolitis, which include blood in the stools, greenish vomit and bloating.

This minimal decline is not the only reason why California motorcycle accident attorneys would caution against being too optimistic about the decline in fatalities this year.  2010 was the second year in a row that recorded a drop in motorcycle accident fatalities, and already, the decline seems to be tapering off.  For instance, much of the decline was seen in the first few months of the year, when there were fewer motorcyclists on the road.  During the latter part of the year, there was actually an increase in motorcycle accident fatalities.

The Governors’ Highway Safety Association is warning that in 2011 and over the next few years, states around the country are likely to see an increase in motorcycle accident fatalities unless they take drastic steps.  For instance, according to the report, helmet use around the country actually dropped in 2010.  The use of helmets approved by the US Department of Transportation declined by as much as 16% in 2010.  There are studies to show that non-helmeted motorcyclists are at a much higher risk of fatal injuries in an accident.

The state of California actually recorded some of the most substantial declines in motorcycle accident fatalities last year.  California did not report its total number of motorcycle accident fatalities for the first nine months of 2009.  However, in the first six months of 2009, there had been 201 motorcycle accident fatalities in California, and those numbers dropped to 166 motorcycle accident fatalities in the first six months of 2010.  That is a decline of 35, and while it’s impressive, we could be doing more to save motorcyclist lives every year.

Any franchise dispute involving Burger King is always going to be of interest to a California franchise dispute lawyer, because the Miami-based company is almost completely a franchisee-based operation. This week, Burger King franchisees settled a business dispute with the company. Under the agreement, the franchisees will agree to dismiss the lawsuit, and Burger King, in return, will give franchisees more authority to set prices for several low-priced items on the restaurant’s menu.

Burger King is an almost 90% franchisee-based operation with most of its restaurants being operated by franchisees. In 2009, the Burger King franchisees represented by the National Franchisee Association filed a lawsuit against the company. The complaint was mainly based on Burger King’s decision to set the Value Menu price of its double cheeseburger at $1. According to the franchisees, this affected their profits. The complaint alleged that the franchise agreement did not allow Burger King to set the prices for the items on the menu.

On Monday, Burger King announced that it had reached an agreement with the franchisees. Under the agreement, it is working with the franchisees to allow them to have their input on the prices of items offered under the Value Menu. Franchises will also have a say in how long such promotional offers will continue. This agreement does not involve any monetary settlement.

Typically, fast food chains like Burger King use low-priced items like the one-dollar cheeseburger to lure customers into their restaurants. However, if these low prices are below cost, then the franchisees can expect to lose money. Franchisees are expected to pay royalties to the franchisor, in this case, Burger King Corporation. When too many sales involve low-priced items, then the franchisees could find that they are actually losing money from the sales of these low-priced items.

Provisions for the creation of the website were included in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.  This groundbreaking piece of legislation came in response to a number of recalls, mostly involving children’s products.  Many of these products had been recalled for excessive lead content, and others had been recalled for choking hazards.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission had been severely criticized by California plaintiffs’ trial law attorneys for its delayed response to these serious risks to children in the U.S.

Congress responded by passing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, and one of the provisions of the legislation was the creation of a federal consumer product database.  The database would be driven by consumers who filed reports of injuries and would be publicly and easily accessible to all consumers.

The new database will make the process of announcing recalls much quicker and much more transparent.  Now, consumers with a defective product can simply file a report online, and have the Consumer Product Safety Commission review the report.  If the agency finds that the report is valid, it is passed on to the manufacturer.  The manufacturer has 10 days in which to file a response.  If the manufacturer fails to do so, the complaint is posted online and made available to the public.  Now, consumers around the country can also access the database and find information about the defective product.

The launch of the database did not happen easily.  Manufacturer lobby groups pushed strongly against some of the provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, including the one that gives them a period of 10 days to respond to a report.  Fortunately, these efforts have been largely unsuccessful, and the CPSC seems set on increasing consumer access to valuable product safety information.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, central line -associated bloodstream infections have a reported mortality rate of between 12% and 35%.  The CDC found that in 2009, the estimated number of central line-associated infections in the ICU dropped to 18,000 from 43,000 in 2001.  In fact according to the study, the reduction in the incidence of these infections is much more pronounced than the reduction in other kinds of infections, including those involving Candida and enterococcus.  Out of the figures in 2009, an estimated 23,000 infections originated in inpatient wards.

These infections are transmitted through contaminated central lines, which are used to transmit nutrients and drugs to patients in intensive care at faster rates of speed.  The central lines can help deliver medicines and essential drugs to a patient much quicker than intravenous lines can, but when they are contaminated, they can also transmit infections to the patient at the same rate of speed.  Besides, any infection that is contracted through a central line spreads rapidly, which is a major factor in the high mortality rate associated with these infections.

Arizona medical malpractice lawyers believe that this reduction in central line infection rates is because of state and federal efforts focused on prevention of these infections, rather than cure.  The CDC report credits other governmental agencies, like the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid for supporting efforts to reduce these infections.

If there is one auto safety wish that Los Angeles car accident lawyers would make for 2011, it would be prioritized pedestrian safety not just in Los Angeles but in the whole state. Many California cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, routinely figure as some of the worst and deadliest cities for pedestrians in the country. When you see pedestrian fatalities in a city like San Francisco, which has its local agencies working hard to prioritize safety for pedestrians, you know something is very wrong. Local transportation safety agencies in California, and in Los Angeles in particular, should be promoting safety initiatives and sting operations to prevent pedestrian accidents.

The problem, which concerns Los Angeles pedestrian accident lawyers, is that California citizens have no group speaking for them. Unlike bicyclists, who have formed a strong association of their own, and have emerged as a powerful lobbying force in recent months, pedestrians have no such organization. While Los Angeles bicyclists have been able to petition the city, and scream loud enough for their voices to be heard, the same cannot be said for the city’s silent pedestrians.

The results of the study have been published in the Archives of Surgery. The researchers analyzed data from a national database of approximately 1,946,831 surgeries, conducted on children under the age of 17. They found a total of 430 incidents, in which medical instruments, including sponges and other devices were left behind in patients during surgery.  The highest number of surgeries in which medical instruments were left behind in the patient’s body occurred during gynecological, gastrointestinal surgery, orthopedic surgery and cardiothoracic surgery.

In 2010, it seems odd to Arizona medical malpractice lawyers that we are still talking about the injuries and fatalities that are caused when medical instruments are left behind in patients’ bodies during the surgery. Unfortunately, such incidents continue to occur at an alarming frequency. In fact, a recent study conducted at North Carolina hospitals showed that there has not been in decline in medical errors since 1999 when the Institute of Medicine published a ground breaking report on medical error-related fatalities.

This is in spite of sharper focus on prevention of medical errors in hospitals, and the development of an international protocol checklist to be performed during surgery. Using a checklist before and after surgery can help limit the possibility of medical errors like wrong site surgeries, wrong patient surgeries and leaving behind medical instruments in a patient’s body. Some of the points on the checklist include marking the site of the operation before the surgery, and checking that all instruments are accounted for before closing the surgery site. In spite of increased use of the checklist, such completely preventable medical errors continue to occur frequently.