Using data from several national resources, including the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, researchers from The Center for Construction Research and Training estimate that over a 45-year career the likelihood of experiencing a disabling injury is about 75 percent for a construction worker.

Additionally, over the course of a career, the same worker has a one in 200 chance of being fatally injured on the job. And if you’re a Hispanic construction worker, you have a 20 percent higher likelihood of dying from a work-related injury.

The study also shows that a person who begins working in construction at 20 has about a 15 percent chance of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease over the course of their life and an 11 percent chance of developing dust-related parenchymal chest X-ray changes, or lung tissue scarring.

While researchers continue to make great strides in reducing construction-related injuries and illnesses, Pete Stafford, the executive director of the Center for Construction Research and Training, said the numbers are still too high.

“Workers and their families suffer the consequences of disabling injuries, and this research shows it’s far too common,” Stafford said in a news release. “So we must continue to raise awareness of the problems – and hope to see our research findings put to use to reduce construction fatalities, injuries and illnesses.”

Researchers note that their method of presenting risk over the course of a lifetime presents a more realistic estimate, rather than using just cross-sectional data, which is the traditional method that tends to underestimate risk.

For more on health safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach personal injury attorney.

The authors of the study found that the amount of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) on workers’ hands was a good predictor of how much was measured in their blood. Further, frequent hand-washing was found to reduce exposure to certain PBDEs, flame retardants that have been widely used over the past few decades.

While PBDEs have been the subject of a number of studies, this is the first peer-reviewed research to correlate levels of the chemicals on people’s hands to concentrations in their blood, said lead author Deborah Watkins, a Ph.D. candidate in Boston University School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health.

In the study, PBDEs were detected in all 31 Boston offices that the research team tested. Certain PBDEs have been banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, but because of slow turnover of products and the long half-life of PBDEs in the environment, human exposure to the compounds will continue for many years, the authors noted.

PBDEs were once widely used in computers and other electronics, as well as the polyurethane foam padding in office chairs, furniture and carpeting, so the chemicals are likely to be found in offices throughout the U.S. In recent years, epidemiologic studies have linked exposure to constituents of the PBDE formulation penta-BDE, which was used in polyurethane foam, with changes in people’s thyroid hormones, impaired fertility in women, lowered levels of testosterone in men, neuro-developmental deficits in children, and undescended testicles in babies.

U.S. manufacturers voluntarily discontinued production of penta-BDE and another PBDE formulation, known as octa-BDE, at the end of 2004. These formulations also are banned in the European Union. Manufacturers of a third formulation, deca-BDE, have agreed to discontinue production by the end of 2013.

Although scientists don’t know exactly how people accumulate PBDEs in their bodies, hand-to-mouth exposure is thought to play a significant role. In this study, workers who reported washing their hands with soap and water four or more times per day tended to have lower levels of penta-PBDEs on their hands than those who washed their hands less often. They also had, on average, three times lower concentrations of penta-PBDEs in their blood.

“This suggests that people’s hands play a key role in how they are exposed to PBDEs,” Watkins said. “This could be through hand-to-mouth behaviors such as eating oily food without washing your hands, or because the PBDEs are absorbed into the blood from the skin.”

Whatever the source, Watkins stressed that “good old-fashioned soap and water may be needed to remove the PBDEs.” The authors did not study whether use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers also was linked to lower hand levels of the compounds.

The concentrations of the PBDEs in the tested office dust varied dramatically, which Watkins said is consistent with other studies.

The authors did not investigate the sources of the PBDEs they detected, but Watkins noted that even offices in a new building with brand-new furniture had compounds associated with PBDEs in their dust. The 31 offices tested in the study, each housing one worker, were located in eight different buildings.

For more on medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach personal injury attorney.

Unapproved prescription cough, cold, and allergy drug products have not been evaluated by the FDA for safety, effectiveness, and quality. People may be at greater risk when using these products than when using FDA-approved prescription drugs or drugs that are appropriately marketed over-the-counter (OTC).

Many health care providers are unaware of the unapproved status of drugs and have continued to unknowingly prescribe them because the drugs’ labels do not disclose that they lack FDA approval.

“Removing these unapproved products from the market will reduce potential risks to consumers,” said Deborah Autor, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press release.  “There are many FDA-approved prescription products, as well as appropriately marketed over-the-counter products, available to treat cough, cold, and allergy symptoms; so, we expect little or no negative impact on consumers from the removal of these unapproved products.”

Companies that have previously listed products subject this recent action with FDA are expected to stop manufacturing them within 90 days and stop shipping the products within 180 days.  Companies that have not previously listed products subject to this action are expected to stop manufacturing and shipping their products immediately.

Given that so many cough, cold, and allergy drug products exist that are FDA-approved prescription products or are appropriately marketed OTC, taking an unapproved prescription product is an unnecessary risk.

Consumers who believe they are taking an unapproved prescription cough, cold, or allergy product should contact their health care provider to discuss alternatives.

This is the 17th action on a drug class as part of FDA’s Unapproved Drugs Initiative1, which began in June 2006.  The initiative is the agency’s risk-based enforcement approach to efficiently and rationally bring all unapproved new drugs into the approval process.  One of the goals of the initiative is to reduce consumer exposure to drugs that are not proven safe, effective, and of high quality.

Consumers and health care professionals are encouraged to report adverse side effects or medication errors from the use of unapproved prescription cough, cold, and allergy products to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program at www.fda.gov/MedWatch2 or by calling 800-332-1088.

For more on patient safety, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach personal injury attorney.

When the carotid arteries on the side of the neck or vertebral arteries alongside the spinal column become clogged, less blood gets to the brain and the risk of stroke increases.

The new guidelines from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, American College of Cardiology and other groups, say evidence for widespread screening is lacking. .

“However, if your doctor hears abnormal blood flow when listening to your neck arteries, or if you have two or more risk factors for stroke (such as high cholesterol or a family history), then it is a
reasonable approach,” said Jonathan L. Halperin, M.D., co-chair of the writing committee and Professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in a press release.

Stroke risk factors include age, family history of stroke, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, atrial fibrillation, physical inactivity, sickle cell disease and other heart
or blood vessel diseases.

“The guidelines will provide new information and evidence to help clinicians select treatment approaches with their patients,” said Thomas G. Brott, M.D., committee co-chair, Professor of Neurology and director of research at the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Fla.

Among dozens of recommendations, the writing group also noted that two often competing procedures are used to restore adequate blood flow to the brain past severely narrowed arteries. In carotid endarterectomy, used for half a century, plaque buildup is surgically removed. In
stenting, which has been available for about 15 years, a balloon catheter is inserted to open the vessel and a metal mesh tube (stent) is left in place to keep the blood vessel open.

After reviewing the evidence, including two recent head-to-head comparisons, the writing committee concluded that both approaches are reasonable and safe when arteries are more than 50 percent blocked.

“The guidelines support carotid surgery as a tried-and-true treatment for most patients,” Brott said in a press release. “However, for patients who have a strong preference for less invasive treatments,
carotid stenting offers a safe alternative. Because of the anatomy of their arteries or other individual considerations, some patients may be more appropriate for surgery and others for stenting.”

Furthermore, medications offer a better alternative than either surgery or stenting for many patients, according to the guidelines. In the latest clinical trials comparing the procedures, all patients
received optimal medical treatment and there were no medication-only groups.

“The risks of these procedures have fallen considerably, but you need to make sure you have very experienced practitioners performing the latest techniques,” Halperin said.

Carotid endarterectomy and carotid stenting are reasonable and effective ways to treat blocked neck arteries, though some patients may be a better candidate for one procedure over the other, the
guidelines also state.

For more on medical issues, see the medical malpractice library of articles by Daytona Beach medical malpractice attorney.

Rescission is the term health insurance companies use for their practice of dropping you after you’ve encountered catastrophic injury or disease by finding chickenshit errors in your paperwork that they can use to justify canceling your policy.

WellPoint health insurance actually gave scores on a 1 to 5 scale in employee evaluations to encourage the practice. One underwriting executive saved Wellpoint $10 million for doing such a good job screwing people over.

How many of you reading this have Florida Blue Cross Blue Shield? Well BCBS rescinded Robin Beaton’s insurance last year after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Blue Cross said this was because she had neglected to state on her forms that she had been treated previously … for acne.

WTF? indeed.

However, under some state laws the practice is legal if done within the allowable time frame (typically up to two years after a policy is issued).

Fortis Insurance Co. rescinded Otto Raddatz’s health insurance after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma because Raddatz did not include in his paperwork a prior CT scan showing an aneurysm and gall stones.

The kicker … Not only had Raddatz’s docter  never told Raddatz about the results, but they were “very minor” and didn’t require treatment.

The outcome? Fortis refused coverage until the state attorney general intervened. The delay caused Raddatz’s window of opportunity to treat the disease to shut, and he died.

I’m not saying the current healthcare reform package is the best answer to our healthcare disaster … but it does outlaw recission.

I’ll be blogging about many issues including lawyer advertising in Florida and why it is so awful (we have the Florida Bar to thank for that). The chilling effect of the Florida Bar’s heavy handed enforcement of its advertising rules is a theme will run though this blog and was the inspiration for its title. In addition to commenting on lawyer advertising, I will also be lobbying the Florida Legislature to reform and improve our laws on child abuse. This blog will follow those efforts closely. Other blog topics will include legal discussions of negligence in nursing homes, accidents and medical settings. Finally, my personal interests will certainly shine through now and again.

That’s all for now. You’ll learn much more about me in the future. For now, I’m headed out for a 70 mile bicycle ride. I’m training for the Florida Ironman. Swim 2.4 miles, Bike 112 miles, Run 26.2 miles, brag for the rest of your life.