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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Hector and Brock have run their course, U.S. Supreme Court Declines Review

Today's post is shared from authored by The Honorable David Langham, the Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims for the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims and Division of Administrative Hearings. Contact him atdavid_langham@doah.state.fl.us. It is shared from his blog lojcc.blogspot.com/
In January, I published Hector is Gone in Florida, Is the U.S. Supreme Court Next? Essentially, the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal concluded that Fla. Stat. §440.105(4)(b)9 makes it a crime to present false or misleading information in the process of obtaining a job.

Specifically, the provision states it shall be unlawful for any person " . . . [t]o knowingly present or cause to be presented any false, fraudulent, or misleading oral or written statement to any person as evidence of identity for the purpose of obtaining employment or filing or supporting a claim for workers’ compensation benefits."

Hector and Brock were each accused of doing so, providing information deemed to be inacurate. Though neither had workers' compensation injuries, they were charged under Chapter 440.

The Florida Supreme Court declined to review the decision of the Fourth District. There was then an effort to have the decision reviewed through the federal courts. However, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari February 23, 2015. The appeals in both Brock and Hector have now run their course.

It...

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Monday, February 23, 2015

Christie admin's money-saving decision could hurt injured workers, lawyers warn

Money 2
Closing the workers’ comp court in Lebanon Township would 
save the state more than $166,000 a year.(Photo: The Register)

 Today's post is shared from mycentraljersey.com/

Story Highlights

  • The state is closing the workers' comp court in Lebanon, which serves Hunterdon, Warren and Somerset counties.
  • The cases would be shifted to Mount Arlington and New Brunswick.
  • Lawyers say the decision would create heavy backlogs and burden workers.
LEBANON TOWNSHIP – A decision by the Christie administration to close one of the state's 15 workers' compensation courts is being opposed by attorneys who say it would burden injured workers and delay cases in five counties.
The court in Lebanon, which serves people in Hunterdon, Warren and Somerset counties, is scheduled to close in June as a cost-saving measure.
Department of Labor spokesman Brian T. Murray last week said the closure would save more than $160,000 a year, not including the cost "of staff from the Division of Law and Public Safety and risk management in Treasury who must go to that location on a rotating basis for different cases."
The Hunterdon County location's 3,853 cases would be divided between the courts in New Brunswick, which already has more than 9,000 cases, and Mt. Arlington in Morris County, which already has more than 4,800 cases.
Lawyers with the New Jersey Advisory Council on Safety & Health (COSH) and the New Jersey State Bar Association say the decision would mean travel times of an...
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Sugar is the New Poison: Time for a Healthier Workplace Menu

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Committee) submitted the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Advisory Report) to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in February 2015. The purpose of the Advisory Report is to inform the Federal government of current scientific evidence on topics related to diet, nutrition, and health. It provides the Federal government with a foundation for developing national nutrition policy. However, the Advisory Report is not the Dietary Guidelines for Americans policy or a draft of the policy. The Federal government will determine how it will use the information in the Advisory Report as the government develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. HHS and USDA will jointly release the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015 later this year.

The public is encouraged to view the Committee’s Advisory Report and provide written comments through midnight E.D.T. on April 8, 2015. The public will have an opportunity to attend a public meeting to hear or provide oral comments on March 24, 2015. Registration is expected to open on or about March 9, 2015.

Each section of the Advisory Report below links to text for that section. A printable PDF is also provided. The PDF provides page and line numbers that the public can use when...

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March 1979 Washington Post: “Some Hair Dryers Give Off Asbestos”

Today's post is shared from http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/

Last month, my circa 1980 hand-held hair dryer finally gave out. It was a Christmas present during my first year in college. The motor on the cream-colored Conair didn’t exactly fail, but I had to jiggle the electrical cord in just the right way or it wouldn’t turn on. I bought a new one, and my old one went into the garbage can. But after reading a paper in the latest issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH), I sort of wish I’d kept it. I knew I had an appliance relic on my hands, but now I’m curious to know whether it contained asbestos.

James Dahlgren, MD and Patrick Talbott published in IJOEH a case report of a 51 year-old former hairdresser from the US who died from peritoneal mesothelioma. This rare form of cancer is caused by asbestos exposure. She worked as a hairdresser in New York from 1976 to 1992 and reported using  a hair dryer everyday on her clients.

“The patient used a blow dryer 1-2 feet away from her face, close enough to feel the expulsion of hot air from the dryer.  She reported that the air was strong enough to blow her hair and bangs away from her face.”

When she chose a career as a cosmetologist, she likely didn’t know she’d be exposed to asbestos. Dahlgren and Talbott indicate that from 1976 to 1982, she only used hairdryers that contained asbestos (and were manufactured by...

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Sunday, February 22, 2015

A Superbug Nightmare Is Playing Out at an LA Hospital

Hospital acquired infections are a major problem and seriously impact the workers' compensation medical delivery system and disability benefits. While some efforts are containing infections, new strains of disease resistant bacteria are complicating the problem. Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com



In today's terrifying health news, the Los Angeles Times reports that two medical scopes used at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center may have been contaminated with the potentially deadly, antibiotic-resistant bacteria carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). Two patients have died from complications that may be connected to the bacteria, and authorities believe that 179 more patients have been exposed.

Most healthy people aren't at risk of catching a CRE infection, but in hospitals this bacteria can be quite dangerous: CRE kills as many as half of all people in whom the infection has spread to the bloodstream. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working with the California Department of Public Health to investigate the situation, which is expected to result in more infections.

The problem isn't just in Los Angeles, though. Last month, USA Today reported that hospitals around the country struggle with transmissions of bacteria on these scopes—medical devices commonly used to treat digestive-system problems—and there have been several other under-the-radar outbreaks of CRE.

This is pretty scary stuff, considering that we are starting to fall behind in the antibiotics arms race against bacteria. Due in large part to unnecessary medical prescriptions and overuse of antibiotics in our food supply, these superbugs are on the rise. In a study published last year that focused specifically on hospitals in the Southeast, researchers reported that...


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Walker Says He'll Sign Right-to-Work

Wisconsin Gvernor Scott Walker continue to battle workers' rights as the 2016 Presidential campaign cycle draws closer.Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nationaljournal.com

The controversial measure will incense unions and could bolster Walker's profile among Republicans as he weighs a 2016 presidential bid.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said this week that he will sign right-to-work legislation if it gets to his desk.

In a statement issued Friday, Walker press secretary Laurel Patrick said: "Governor Walker continues to focus on budget priorities to grow our economy and to streamline state government. With that said, Governor Walker co-sponsored right-to-work legislation as a lawmaker and supports the policy. If this bill makes it to his desk, Governor Walker will sign it into law."

Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, also said in a radio interview Friday that he is "confident" Walker will sign a right-to-work bill if it gets to his desk.

In an interview with WTMJ-FM Friday morning, Fitzgerald said: "Behind the scenes, the governor has been supportive of the idea that, 'Listen, if you guys really think you can get this through in a form that accomplishes what we probably want to do with right-to-work, then you know I'll sign it.'"

Fitzgerald said a finalized version of the bill will be out Friday afternoon, and Republican legislative leaders expect to see it passed by the upper chamber by next Thursday at the latest, at which point it will move to the state Assembly, where Speaker Robin Voss has already expressed his support. Republicans...

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UCLA Bacteria Outbreak Highlights The Challenges Of Curbing Infections

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from kaiserhealthnews.org

The bacterial outbreak at a Los Angeles hospital highlights shortcomings in the federal government’s efforts to avert the most lethal hospital infections, which are becoming increasingly impervious to treatment.

Government efforts are hobbled, infection control experts say, by gaps in monitoring the prevalence of these germs both within hospitals and beyond. The continued overuse of antibiotics — due to over-prescription by doctors, patients’ insistence and the widespread use in animals and crops — has helped these bacteria evolve into more dangerous forms and flourish.

In the outbreak at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center, two patients have died and more than 100 may have been exposed to CRE, an antibiotic-resistant bacteria commonly found in the digestive tract. When this germ reaches the bloodstream, fatality rates are 40 percent. The government estimates about 9,000 infections, leading to 600 deaths, are caused each year by CRE, which stands for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.


Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in 2008 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
 (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

UCLA Health says the infections probably were passed around by inadequately sterilized scopes used to peer inside a body.

Previous CRE outbreaks have occurred elsewhere in the country, including hospitals in Illinois and Seattle.

The immediate public health response has focused on the safety of the scopes and tracking down people who may have been...


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