The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the company that manufactures Tylenol, Motrin, and several other popular over-the-counter medications, has agreed to plead guilty to one federal criminal charge in the case the government filed against the company for selling medications contaminated by pieces of metal. The company, which is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has also agreed to pay a $25 million fine.

According to the DOJ, in 2009, complaints were made by consumers who found “black specks” floating in bottles of liquid Infants’ Tylenol they had purchased. Testing revealed those particles to be nickel, iron and chromium. The contaminated products had all been manufactured at a plant in Pennsylvania.

An investigation by the company found that those particles had been introduced into the medication at some point during manufacturing. However, not only did the company not take the necessary steps to fix the issue at the plant, they continued to sell the contaminated products for another year before finally issuing a recall in 2010. To compound the problem of contaminated medication, when announcing the recall, McNeil also announced that the products may have contained more of an active drug ingredient than what was put on the packaging labels.

The company claims that no child was injured from the tainted products. One family did file a lawsuit against the company after their 4-year-old son died; however, the lawsuit was dismissed by a court because the boy’s death had occurred after the recall.

In addition to the contaminated medication, the company has come under federal scrutiny several times over the past few years for other dangerous faulty manufacturing issues. These issues included incorrect direction labeling on medications as well as products which had moldy odors. These problems have resulted in millions of bottles of medicines having to be recalled.

If you or a loved one have been injured due to a dangerous or defective product, contact an experienced Westport personal injury attorney to find out what your legal options may be against the product’s manufacturer. Attorney Richard H. Raphael has extensive experience representing clients in product liability cases. Call 203-226-6168 for a free consultation.

Most drivers have experienced being the target of an aggressive driver or have been involved in a road rage incident. Unfortunately, many of these incidents can end up turning into fatal car crashes.

Recent Road Rage Incident Goes Viral

One woman recently experienced road rage and recorded her experience on video. The video has gone viral and helped police arrest the aggressive driver.

The victim, a disabled grandmother who had her six-year-old granddaughter in her car, was driving on a two-lane road when an SUV began tailgating her. The SUV tried to pass her, and almost crashed head-on into another vehicle traveling the other way.

When the SUV tried to pass a second time, the woman pulled off to the side to let her do so, but the SUV almost ran her off the road. The woman then called 911 to report the SUV and began recording with her phone, which was in a holder mounted to the dashboard.

The video shows the SUV braking and stopping multiple times, and swerving and crossing the double line before coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road. The driver then gets out of the SUV and comes over to the victim’s car and tries to reach into the open window, which the victim rolls up.

Clearly angered, the SUV’s driver begins yelling and pounding on the victim’s car. The victim’s granddaughter can be heard screaming and crying in the background of the video, clearly terrified by the SUV’s driver’s actions. The driver of the SUV then took off, but was later identified. The 40-year-old driver has been charged with reckless endangerment, assault and battery, damaging private property, crossing the center highway line and making threats.

Protect Yourself from Road Rage

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), road rage is defined when a driver “commits moving traffic offenses so as to endanger other persons or property” or is “an assault with a motor vehicle or other dangerous weapon by the operator or passenger of one motor vehicle on the operator or passengers of another motor vehicle.”

Road rage is responsible for almost 70 percent of traffic fatalities each year. When encountering an aggressive driver, there are several steps you can take to avoid becoming a crash statistic. These tips include:

• Do everything to get out of the aggressive driver’s way;
• Do not “challenge” your right to be there by speeding your vehicle up or slowing it down;
• Do not make eye contact with the other driver;
• Do not respond to any obscene gesture the other driver makes;
• Do not honk your horn at the driver;
• Report the driver to law enforcement;
• Keep your doors and windows locked; and
• Do not go home if you are being followed. Instead, drive directly to a police station.

Contact a Connecticut Personal Injury Attorney

If you have been injured in a car accident caused in a road rage incident, please consult an experienced Westport personal injury attorney today to find out what legal action you may be able to take against the aggressive driver for your pain and loss.

When most people think of nurses, they imagine a person who is there to care for the sick and injured. However, it is becoming a more common scenario for nurses to end up on the other end of the stethoscope and in need of medical care themselves. According to data gathered from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nurses suffer from over 35,000 occupational back and other injuries every year. These injuries are serious enough to cause a halt to lifestyle and missed days at work.

Those particularly susceptible to back injuries are nursing assistants and orderlies. In fact, musculoskeletal injuries to nursing-field workers occur triple the amount than they do for construction workers. Moreover, these workers have more of these types of injuries than truckers, warehouse workers, and stock clerks. The BLS statistics also reveal that the main way these injuries occur is from lifting and moving patients.

The hospital industry has recently come under fire for failing to develop safe patient handling protocols in order to protect nursing staff from chronic back injuries. There has been much criticism of hospital administrators for not making this issue a top priority, even from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). A spokesperson from OSHA says the agency’s hands are tied in protecting nurses unless new laws are passed granting OSHA the powers to do so.

There are safety protocols which could easily be put in place to protect nursing staff, and some hospitals have already implemented them. One hospital, which uses a procedure referred to as “safe patient handling” has already seen an 80 percent reduction in back injuries to nurses—their staff has received extensive training on safe lifting and special machines are used to lift the patients.

If you are a member of the nursing field and have suffered from back, neck, or other musculoskeletal injuries, contact an experienced Westport personal injury attorney to find out what legal recourse you may have for your pain and loss.