Archive for January, 2010

A Palo Alto man who developed an infection after donating blood at Stanford Hospital has filed a lawsuit against the hospital for medical malpractice.

Over the last 10 years, Christopher Bui, 43, had regularly donated his 0-positive type blood for free at the Stanford Blood Center, his attorney Joseph Carcione Jr. said. Then in April 2008, Bui came down with a debilitating infection and, when he could not afford the expenses anymore, Stanford denied him care, Carcione said.
Cube Advertisement

“I find Stanford to be absolutely disgusting in terms of the way they deal with people like Mr. Bui. It’s just disgusting,” Carcione said.

In June 2009, Bui filed a suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court against Stanford Blood Center, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford University and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, school of medicine and medical center.

The suit alleges that Stanford injured Bui on April 10, 2008, when they took his blood and that they backed out of a promise to take care of him if anything happened to him by virtue of his donations, Carcione said. The suit furthermore accuses the hospital of being unjustly enriched by taking his blood under false pretenses and selling it, Carcione said.

He said the sum of the suit will be determined once he verifies how much Stanford earns from selling donated blood.

Gary Migdol, director of communications at Stanford Hospital and Clinics released a statement in response.

“Due to the privacy interests of its patients, Stanford University Medical Center cannot comment on the allegations raised by the blood donor’s attorney. The Stanford Blood Center has long-standing and safe procedures in place for the donation of blood by its many volunteers,” Migdol stated.

Migdol asserted that the occurrence of a complication from a blood donation is rare and usually limited to temporary bruising. He noted that blood draws are done by way of a single-use needle that is pre-packaged in a sterile container obtained from a non-affiliated manufacturer and that the needle is discarded after it has been used for a single donation.

There is a possibility, he stated, that donors may get infections from sources unrelated to the blood donation.

Over the years Rob has handled many cases involving medical negligence of both adults and children, involving hospitals, doctors, lower tier health care providers and nursing home/elder abuse. More on Washington Medical Malpractice.

Source

Nestlé USA said Wednesday that two samples of its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough made at a Virginia factory tested positive for E. coli bacteria this week despite rigorous safety measures put in place after a recall of the product last summer.

Nestlé also said the tainted dough had not left the factory and no recall was necessary.

The company said on Wednesday that it would shut the plant in Danville, Va., for nearly two weeks while it changes its recipe and production processes. When it reopens, the company will begin using flour that has been heated to kill dangerous bacteria, including E. coli, salmonella and listeria.

Nestlé said that all cookie dough currently in stores is safe and that it was not recalling any of the product.

It said that after last summer’s recall, it began testing samples of every batch of dough for E. coli O157:H7, the toxic strain behind last year’s outbreak.

“Everything that’s in the marketplace is fine and has passed our testing,” said Roz O’Hearn, a Nestlé spokeswoman.

Nestlé issued a huge recall of the bake-at-home cookie dough in June after it was linked to an outbreak in which at least 72 people in 30 states became ill. Public health officials suspected people got sick after eating the raw dough.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it was investigating and working with Nestlé to pinpoint the source of the latest E. coli contamination.

People who consume even minuscule amounts of a toxic strain of E. coli can become severely ill. In the worst cases, it can lead to kidney failure and death. The bacteria, which is more commonly the cause of recalls of raw ground beef, can be killed by cooking.

The company said that after last year’s recall it began testing all the ingredients entering its Danville plant, which is where most of the refrigerated dough is made. It also began testing every batch of dough and holding the product in the plant until the results were known.

The two batches that tested positive this month were made on a single day last week but final testing confirming the presence of the harmful bacteria was not completed until Monday, the company said. It informed the F.D.A. of the positive tests on Monday.

Ms. O’Hearn said that the tainted cookie dough and all dough made at the plant since would be destroyed. She added that dough made the day before the tainted batches were produced would also be destroyed.

“It sounds to me that they’re really taken aback by the fact that they’ve run into the problem again,” said Carol L. Tucker-Foreman, a food safety advocate of the Consumer Federation of America. “And so they’ve decided they cannot control their supply well enough to be confident that they won’t have E. coli contamination again and they’re going to cook their flour to prevent it.”

She was not overly concerned that the company was not planning to recall the cookie dough already on store shelves.

“Given the bad publicity they have had and the quick action they have taken to change their system now that they’ve had another contamination, it sounds to me like they’ve been pretty responsible,” she said.

“I think if they thought their brand name was at risk right now they’d be out there cleaning it off the shelves.”

Nestlé repeated warnings on Wednesday that consumers should not eat raw Toll House dough and should bake the product before eating it.

It said there could be some shortages of the cookie dough in stores in coming weeks before production resumes and inventory can be replenished.

Injured in Lynnwood? Let us help. Contact our Lynnwood personal injury attorneys today.

Source

Following Tribune reports of violent attacks by felons living in nursing homes, some facilities are scrambling to comply with a 4-year-old disclosure law requiring them to notify state public health officials when they admit offenders, state officials say.

As a result, the number of felons reported to be living in the facilities increased last month, according to state records and interviews. Illinois nursing homes disclosed that they held 3,326 offenders as of Dec. 10, up from 3,224 on Nov. 5.

Some had been living in the facilities undeclared for as long as a year, records show.

“If they have not been reporting individuals in the past, they’ve begun reporting them,” said Richard Dees, chief of the state Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Long-Term Care.

Statewide, the rate at which facilities reported new felons has doubled from about 50 a month to 100 last month.

Since 2006, Illinois has required nursing facilities to conduct criminal background checks on all new residents and immediately notify state health authorities when they admit anyone with a serious felony conviction. But some homes failed to conduct the background checks within the required time period, made serious errors on the checks, or simply failed to report felons to public health officials, the Tribune found in an October investigation. Some of these offenders went on to commit assaults and other serious crimes inside the homes.

On Friday, for example, a 22-year-old mentally ill felon pleaded guilty to the brutal January rape of a 69-year-old woman who lived in the same Elgin nursing home. Christopher Shelton’s background screening had been improperly handled by Elgin’s Maplewood Care nursing home because they used the wrong birth date, records show. Shelton will serve 12 years under his plea agreement.

Read the rest of this entry »