Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.
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Surgical errors and complications occurring during robotic laparoscopic surgery have to be reported by hospitals to the robot manufacturers. The manufacturers will then report them to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Because of the financial interests at stake hospitals and manufacturers tend to keep complaints quiet. An independent and transparent reporting system may provide a more accurate picture of the actual level of safety of robotic surgery.

According to a study led by Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, more than one million robotic surgeries have been performed in 12 years but only 245 complications including 71 deaths were reported to the FDA. For a new and complex technology these numbers seemed too low to Dr. Makary and his team. To prove their assumption, the researchers compared the incidents reported to the FDA between 2000 and 2012 with legal judgments and adverse events using LexisNexis to scan news media, and PACER to scan court records. They found that 8 cases were not properly reported. Among them some were never filed and other were filed after the media talked about them.

The study also reveals that out of the 71 deaths, 22 were related to gynecologic procedures, 15 happened during urologic surgery and 12 during cardiothoracic surgery. The most common cause of death was excessive bleeding. When patients survived, hysterectomy was the robotic surgical procedure that had the most complications with 43% of all injuries.

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Four young people died in a car accident at 5:00 am Saturday morning on a highway in Westchester, New York. The 19 year old driver Bruno Vaccarezza, a fast car enthusiast, was driving a Volkswagen Golf that his dad rented for him after Bruno crashed his Mini Cooper three weeks ago.

According to the police, the car was traveling at a high rate of speed when the driver lost control of the car and slammed into the pillar of an overpass The impact was so severe that the vehicle was completely destroyed and caught fire. The occupants were burned beyond recognition.

Vacarezza’s hobby was to soup up cars and his facebook profile shows pictures and video of such cars. One of the Youtube videos he posted was titled Craziest Car Wreck EVER.

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Kingfisher, an Indian carrier owned by United Breweries has filed a $ 236 million lawsuit against U.S.-based International Aero Engines, which is part owned by United Technologies Corp’s Pratt & Whitney unit. Kingfisher alleged that the IAE V-2500 A5 engines supplied to Kingfisher were “inherently defective, both in design and manufacture,” .
Read complete article at Reuters.com

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To assure the safety and the quality of their products manufactured abroad, Western companies are relying on factory inspections conducted by external monitoring companies. Audits not only monitor timing and quality of the production before it is shipped abroad but also make sure that working hours, compensation, management practices and health and safety are adequate so workers are protected and big companies can project a good corporate image to their consumers.
An extensive investigation by Stephanie Clifford and Steven Greenhouse from the New York Times, reveals that the inspection system intended to protect workers and make product safer is riddled by flaws.

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A woman was struck and killed by a hit and run driver in the Bronx, New York, yesterday night after a a club bouncer asked everybody to exit the club because someone had a gun. Over a hundred patrons started to run out of the club and poured across the street in a panic. As she was running away, a young woman was struck and killed by a car who sped away without even slowing down.

Nightclub owners are responsible for providing adequate safety for their patrons. This includes the responsibility to hire an adequate number of properly trained security employees who can monitor the crowd in any type of situation and are able to act effectively when problems arise. In this particular case, the security staff seems to have been completely overwhelmed by the situation. Therefore the club owner may be liable for negligent security.

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Cargo%20Tank%20Rollover.pngDriving too fast and weather conditions are the main causes of cargo tank truck rollovers but other factors such as vehicle design, load effect or liquid slosh and surge, highway factors and driver factors can also be at the origin of a rollover.

This very instructive video from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) explains in detail how each factor can contribute to a rollover and look at common driving errors that can cause this dangerous type of truck accident.

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After a woman was struck by a truck causing her death at the Ocean Parkway Intersection in Brooklyn last June (see our previous blog), the New York Sate Department of Transportation finally approved a $200,000 crosswalk makeover that had been delayed since 2012.

A pedestrian island and other enhancements that will improve safety for all users will be installed on Ocean Parkway near Church Ave where cars funnel onto the expressway.

The construction is expected to start this fall.

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An elderly woman was struck and killed by a bus yesterday in Brooklyn, New York. This is the second MTA Bus accident that happened in Brooklyn in less than a week. On August 25th we reported in a previous blog that a young bicyclist was severely injured after being struck by an MTA bus.

Among the 5 New York boroughs, Brooklyn is the deadliest for pedestrians and bicyclists. In 2012 Brooklyn recorded 48 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, Manhattan 41, Queens 40, the Bronx 19, and Staten Island 7.

Read more in the New York Post

 

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Thyroid.jpgThyroid cancer may be over diagnosed and over treated and many patients may have been exposed to unnecessary treatment and dangerous procedures according to a new study lead by Juan Pablo Brito, M.B.B.S. an endocrine fellow and health care delivery scholar at Mayo Clinic, Minnesota and published in BMJ.

New technologies such as MRI and CT scans and ultrasound, allowing the detection of very small and slow cancerous thyroid nodules contributed to triple the number of thyroid cancers detected in the past 30 years. However the number of deaths stayed the same.

According to the study this gap suggests that low risk cancers may be over treated and that patients may be subjected to unnecessary, expensive and risky procedures such as thyroidectomy (complete or partial removal of the thyroid) or dangerous treatments using radioactive iodine.

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Every summer the the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia offers summer research internships for undergraduate students. In a recent article, Carol Murray, the training coordinator for the CIPR discusses the benefits of providing training to the next generation of injury scientists and igniting interest in the field by introducing young people to the world of multidisciplinary injury science.

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CIRP Student trainees – Summer 2013