Hospitals Are Become Even Deadlier Places for Sick People

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that lethal drug-resistance bacteria is making its appearance at a growing rate at health care facilites. What has now been called a "nightmare of bacteria," CRE infections may now become a very serious complication of a work-related injury

"Drug-resistant germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, are on the rise and have become more resistant to last-resort antibiotics during the past decade, according to a new CDC Vital Signs report.  These bacteria are causing more hospitalized patients to get infections that, in some cases, are impossible to treat. 

CRE are lethal bacteria that pose a triple threat:

• Resistance: CRE are resistant to all, or nearly all, the antibiotics we have - even our most powerful drugs of last-resort.
• Death: CRE have high mortality rates – CRE germs kill 1 in 2 patients who get bloodstream infections from them.
• Spread of disease:  CRE easily transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria.  For example, carbapenem-resistant klebsiella can spread its drug-destroying weapons to a normal E. coli bacteria, which makes the E.coliresistant to antibiotics also. That could create a nightmare scenario since E. coliis the most common cause of urinary tract infections in healthy people.

Related articles

• Paper or Plastic: A Reusable Workplace Hazard From The Grocery Store (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Workers Are Getting Sick to Their Stomach - A New Virus (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• The Flu: A Compensable Event and Its Complications (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Protect American workers from exposure to silica on the job (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Knee Replacement Medical Device Recalled (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

$8 Million Verdict: DePuy Defective Hip Implant

A jury in California awarded a retired guard $8 Million as a result of suffering from a defective hip implant. The defective product, an ASR hip implant,  was manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. Many additional cases are pending though-out the country.

Read more about hip-implants and workers' compensation

Workers' Compensation: Knee Replacement Medical Device Recalled

Feb 27, 2013

4, 2013, DePuy issued an Urgent Medical Device Recall informing hospitals and surgeons of the problem and to immediately stop distributing or using the recalled lots. If a medical facility has the affected product in stock, it is ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Defective Artificial Hips Maybe a Costly problem for Workers

Dec 17, 2010

With an estimated 93,000 DePuy recalled artificial hips implanted worldwide, the workers' compensation benefit system will probably be paying for a vast amount of the remediation and treatment costs, and then having its ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Hip Implants Recalled Due to Failure

Aug 27, 2010

DePuy release a statement today that they two products being recalled were: the ASR XL Acetabular System, a hip socket used in traditional hip replacement, and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System, a partial hip replacement ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants: FDA Issues a ...

Jan 17, 2013

Johnson and Johnson has recalled 2 Hip Implants because of failure. The two implants were made by the DePuy Orthopaedics unit of Johnson and Johnson. The decision to withdrawn the products was based upon the fact .

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Jobs....a long way to go

The workers' compensation market/business is dependent on employment. The newly released statistics, while appearing encouraging, might not be so after all.

Despite today's promising numbers report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, some believe that the US has a very long way to go to get to full employment. Repeating the golden years is a very difficult road.

I commented a few years ago (Is The Recovery Of The Workers’ Compensation System An Illusion?) that workers' compensation is not necessarily anti-cyclical, ie. does not necessarily do better in down markets. That has been reflected in decreased manufacturing and insurance carrier insolvencies.

Law Schools Should Establish Workers' Compensation Law Firms

Today the NY Times reports that law schools through the nation are opening law firms for recent graduates creating new post graduate job opportunities for debt ridden students and for additional training. The field of workers' compensation law is a fertile opportunity to benefit injured workers, new lawyers and academia.

Click here to read: To Place Graduates, Law Schools Are Opening Firms

Related articles

• The Obama Agenda: The Road to Workplace Wellness (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Universal Medical and Workers' Compensation: It's Not "If", It's "When" - California (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• NFL, Like M.D.'s, Was Slow to Recognize Concussion Risk =Orentlicher & David (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Knee Replacement Medical Device Recalled (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Out-of-State Work-Related Injuries: What You Need to Know (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Misclassification Fraud Across the Country (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

NJ Gas Station Owner Agrees to Pay $3 Million in Back Wages to Employees

Daniyal Enterprises LLC and owner Waseem Chaudhary, and other companies owned and operated by Chaudhary, have agreed to pay $2 million in overtime back wages and an additional $1 million in liquidated damages to 417 workers employed at 72 of Chaudhary’s New Jersey gas stations after investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The department also has assessed $91,000 in civil money penalties against this employer because of the repeat and willful nature of the violations. Additionally, the employer has agreed to take proactive measures, including a three-year monitoring program at each gas station, to ensure future FLSA compliance.

“This agreement returns hard-earned wages to workers in one of only two states that still mandates full-service gas pumps,” said acting Secretary of Labor Seth D. Harris. “All gas station owners and operators in New Jersey should take note of this precedent by reviewing their payroll practices and legal obligations. Gas station attendants are few in number, earn low wages, work long hours and often lack English proficiency – factors that contribute to their vulnerability as well as the importance of protecting their right to be paid properly.”

OSHA fines Englewood, NJ, surgical center $68,000 for failing to protect workers exposed to bloodborne pathogen hazards

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited CTO Management LLC, doing business as Health East Ambulatory Surgical Center, with 10 serious violations for bloodborne pathogen hazards found at its Englewood facility. OSHA's August 2012 investigation was initiated in response to a complaint and resulted in $68,000 in proposed penalties.

The serious violations include failing to counsel an employee who was stuck with a contaminated needle, test the employee's blood in a timely manner and provide the appropriate medicine to the employee to prevent contracting a potential disease. A serious citation is issued when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result and the employer new, or should have known, of the hazard.

Big Pharma: More corruption reported in the architecture of evidence based medicine

US HHS Inspector General Reports

"Federal law and regulations require Medicare Part D Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) committees to make prescription drug coverage decisions based on scientific evidence and standards of practice. 

Formulary decisions affect beneficiaries’ access to specific prescription drugs and the cost of drugs to beneficiaries and the Federal Government. To comply with the law,sponsors’ P&T committees must prevent conflicts of interest from influencing members to give preference to certain drugs.committee be independent and free of conflict relative to the sponsor and pharmaceutical manufacturers"........