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Products Resources
 
AAJ: Driven to Safety: How Litigation Has Spurred Auto Safety Innovations, April 2010. In the wake of Toyota’s sudden acceleration scandal, automobile safety is once again a hot-button issue. After internal documents showed Toyota knew about potential defects, hid them from regulators, and even bragged about saving money from limiting its recalls, Toyota received the largest fi ne ever levied against an auto manufacturer.  Access the Release or Full Report.

Produce Safety Project, March 2010:  Foodborne Illness Costs Nation $152 Billion Annually -Nearly $39 Billion Loss Attributed to Produce.  Acute foodborne illnesses cost the United States an estimated $152 billion per year in healthcare, workplace and other economic losses, according to a report published by the Produce Safety Project (PSP). The study, Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States, was written by Dr. Robert L. Scharff, a former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) economist and current Ohio State University assistant professor in the department of consumer sciences. The study estimates that more than a quarter of these costs, an estimated $39 billion, are attributable to foodborne illnesses associated with fresh, canned and processed produce. Access the Release, Summary or Full Report.
Toyota's Safety Problems: A Checkered History By Katy Steinmetz, TIME Magazine, Tuesday, Feb. 09, 2010  For decades, Toyota and U.S. government agencies have been negotiating over a growing list of safety issues. Here is a history of major events pertaining to Toyota's acceleration-related problems. Read More.
Center for Public Integrity: Pets and Pesticides: Let’s Be Careful Out There -Are Over-the-Counter Flea-and-Tick Treatments Really Safe for Dogs and Cats? By M.B. Pell and Jillian Olsen | December 16, 2008. Last June Diane Bromenschenkel applied a flea-and-tick product to her English pointer, Wings, so the dog wouldn’t get ticks while hunting pheasant in the tall grasslands of western Idaho. Wings, a healthy five-year-old with a sleek white coat and a chocolate brown mask, enjoyed long walks in the woods, bacon treats, and burying things in the yard. But three months after the pesticide was applied, the animal was dead. Read more.
U.S. House Committee on Oversight & Reform letter to Toyota regarding evidence that Toyota withheld relevant documents Feb 26, 2010.  "As part of this investigation, we have obtained and reviewed documents produced under subpoena from a former Toyota in-house lawyer, Mr. Dimitrios Biller. We have reviewed these documents and found evidence that Toyota deliberately withheld relevant electronic records that it was legally required to produce in response to discovery orders in litigation. Many of these documents concern "rollover" cases in which the plaintiff was injured. I am writing to request that you personally review these records and provide a response to these allegations."  Read letter.

AAJ: Foreign Manufacturers Account for 83% of 2009 Recalls, 2/2010. "Eighty-three percent (312) of the 377 recalls announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 2009 were from foreign manufacturers, according to an analysis by the American Association for Justice (AAJ). Despite this fact, foreign manufacturers are able to skirt the law and export billions of dollars of products to the U.S. without facing the same legal accountability for product defects that U.S. manufacturers face, even when their products injure or kill Americans." Continue reading the press release. Access the 2008 Recalls and 2009 Recalls.

Center for Justice & Democracy: Heart Sick - Hazardous Heart Devices and the Importance of Litigation 2009. "Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States. Medical device companies have invested billions of dollars developing devices to repair and protect the heart. While saving many lives, heart implants are also among the most dangerous and recalled medical implants ever made." Learn More.

AAJ 2009:  They Knew but Failed to...True Stories of Corporations Who Knew Their Products Were Dangerous, Sometimes Deadly - "Every day there is another recall or warning of a product that turned out to have design flaws or unexpected problems - a drug with an unanticipated side effect, a toy with a sharp piece that can injure a child, or a popular food product that may have been contaminated in production." Learn more.

Saving Lives: AAJ: Cases That Have Made Us Safer, Saved Lives. "Throughout history, the civil justice system has kept Americans safe by allowing them a fair chance to receive justice when they are injured by the negligence of others – even when it means taking on the most powerful corporations.Some of the countless cases that have made our families safer." Learn more.

Pharmaceuticals

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report -  Challenges for FDA in Conducting Manufacturer Inspections:  The FDA has not met the statutory requirement to inspect certain domestic establishments manufacturing medical devices every 2 years, and the agency faces challenges inspecting foreign establishments.

Cold Medicine & Children: Each year, about 7,000 children ages 11 and younger go to hospital emergency rooms after taking nonprescription cold and cough medicines, about two-thirds of them ingested without a parent or caregiver nearby, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control & Prevention study. Children ages 2 - 5 yrs are the most often affected. The Federal Drug Administration recommends that these drugs not be used to treat infants and children under 2 yrs old due to serious and possibly life-threatening side effects that may occur.

Resources on clinical trials:

US Government Resources

U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and ClinicalTrials.gov provides patients, family members, and members of the public easy and free access to information on clinical studies for a wide range of diseases and conditions.

U.S. FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research searchable database of safety information on specific drugs. 

Pharmaceutical Industry Resources

www.clinicalstudyresults.org  is a central web-based repository for clinical study results in a reader-friendly, standardized format and will serve the valuable function of making clinical study results for U.S.-marketed pharmaceuticals more transparent. IMPORTANT NOTE: These results are being made available to practicing physicians, patients and others for informational purposes only in the interests of full scientific disclosure and are not intended to substitute for the FDA-approved labeling.

 
Toys, Appliances, Lawn Equipment...

www.healthytoys.org   Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys. HealthyToys.org was launched to address the failures of our current system to regulate chemicals in products. HealthyToys.org is a first step in providing parents, grandparents, and others who care about children with the information they need to make better choices when purchasing toys and other children's products.