Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

This week, Food and Drug Administration officials issued an alert warning consumers to avoid eating pistachios and food containing pistachios while it investigates the source of another possible salmonella outbreak.

The FDA announced that Setton International Foods, Inc., a division of Terra Bella Inc., would voluntarily recall approximately 2 million pounds of roasted pistachios that have been shipping since last fall. The investigation and recall come after two people contacted the FDA complaining of symptoms of salmonella poisoning after eating the nuts. Although the link has not yet been confirmed, the plant where the pistachios were processed temporarily shut down last week.

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One side of Carol Stanley’s fight to balance the scales of justice is her work with the Crime Victims Task Force. As we explained in the previous segment, Carol is working with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office to make the Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights enforceable, much the way it is in several other states. The other side of her work involves meeting with her state legislators to amend a law and make it easier to prosecute acts of violence that result in traumatic brain injury.

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Carol found that both the legal proceedings and the laws themselves were far from perfect – representing an objectionable pairing of too much protection for offenders with too little justice for victims. As her son Jason struggled with the effects of a traumatic brain injury, the men who assaulted him were protected as youths and thus shielded from any real punishment. Adding insult to injury, the court system seemed to impede Carol’s quest just to stay informed of any legal activity concerning her son’s assault.

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Thursday we talked about the ordeal that Jason Stanley, a 20-year-old Auburn University student, endured after being physically assaulted by 3 other men in 2007. The assailants knocked Jason to the ground, causing him to lose consciousness after he hit his head on the concrete pavement. Doctors initially treated Jason for superficial wounds, not realizing until weeks later that he actually suffered from a serious traumatic brain injury (TBI).

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This week (March 15-21) is the 48th observance of National Poison Prevention Week, and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is urging parents, grandparents and caregivers to have layers of poison prevention protection in the home.

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Carol Stanley’s life took an unexpected turn one day in January of 2007 when her son Jason, a student at Auburn University, was physically assaulted by three other men. The attack left Jason with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that might have eluded medical staff if it weren’t for his worsening symptoms and his mother’s persistence in finding the right care for her son. The life-altering incident set Jason on a path to recovery and led Carol on an often frustrating crusade for better laws – laws that are more favorable to victims and less protective of those who commit the crimes. We will tell their story in segments over the next few days.

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and medical diagnostic equipment manufacturer Welch Allyn have issued a notice to health care professionals and consumers of a voluntary worldwide Class 1 Recall on more than 14,000 of its AED 10 Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) and the MRL JumpStart AED.

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A day care near the town of Scott, Arkansas, served ten children between 2 and 7 years old windshield wiper fluid late last Thursday afternoon, an Associated Press article reported. According to authorities, a school worker bought the windshield wiper fluid, along with many other items, during a recent shopping trip. Later, the owner-operator of the daycare apparently mistook the toxic fluid for Kool-Aid. “This product was mistakenly grabbed and thought to be Kool-Aid and put in the refrigerator,” Laura James, a pediatric pharmacologist and toxicologist, told the AP.

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Springfield, Massachusetts, Baystate Medical Center is accusing one of its prominent anesthesiologists of providing fictitious data about the after-surgery benefits from painkillers like Vioxx and Celebrex.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Class 1 recall of electronic infusion pumps designed to deliver controlled amounts of medications or fluids to patients through intravenous, intra-arterial, or epidural administration.

Class 1 recalls are the most serious type of recall issued by the agency and involve situations where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious injury or death.

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