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

Patients who received massive overdoses of radiation to the head during tests for strokes at hospitals in California and Alabama may face long-term risks of cancer and brain damage, according to the New York Times. The newspaper launched an investigation into the overdoses that were first reported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October.

At that time, the agency said it had received reports of more than 200 patients at one hospital receiving excessive doses of radiation to the head, which resulted in hair loss and erythema, or redness of the skin. The Times has since found that the radiation overdoses were larger and more widespread than originally thought – exceeding 400 from eight different hospitals – and that some patients reported symptoms far worse than hair loss, including memory loss and confusion.

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In an analysis of commercial fishing deaths from 2000 to 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found Gulf of Mexico shrimping to be the deadliest form of commercial fishing in the United States. Commercial fishing in general is one of the most dangerous industries for workers, with a fatality rate of 128 per 100,000 — 32 times higher than the rate for all other workers.

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Summer is the perfect time to experience the great outdoors, but you may want to use caution when you come in contact with nature’s creatures. It’s frightening enough to encounter dangerous snakes, spiders or scorpions while camping or hiking, but if you get bitten you know you can count on hospitals to inject antivenom into your veins to counter any ill effects. What you probably don’t know is that the supply of many life-saving antivenoms is running out and drug companies just don’t think it’s profitable enough to keep on producing it.

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Eastdale Mall in Montgomery, Alabama, reopened last night at 6 p.m. after inspectors found it posed no risk to the general public. The mall closed on Sunday after the body of 22-year-old employee Nicholas Burdette was found in the bathroom near the mall’s skating rink. Some mall employees and others familiar with the mall’s facilities believe that Burdette was killed by a Freon leak around the Ice Palace skating rink that allegedly has made others sick in the past.

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Deputy Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a warning to the petrochemical and energy industries today, prompted by the deaths of 58 workers in just the last four months. Eleven of those deaths occurred when the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20.

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The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission has identified the manufacturers of the Chinese drywall that thousands of homeowners say has ruined their homes and their health. Enough toxic drywall to build 30,000 homes entered U.S. ports from China during the post-Katrina building boom of 2006 and 2007. People in as many as 18 states claim that the drywall has sickened them with a slew of respiratory problems while corroding their homes’ electrical wiring, air conditioning units, and other household systems.

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A Cullman, Alabama, man died Tuesday afternoon after falling on the scene of a construction site. Authorities said that Kenneth Ball, 51, a contractor and resident of Cullman, was installing a window on the fourth floor of a construction project when his scaffolding collapsed.

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While most safety recalls involve products with defects that may cause direct physical harm to consumers, this week the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of books that give bad advice and may cause consumers to hurt themselves.

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People who take the St. John’s wort (SJW), an herb and herbal supplement widely used to treat depression, may be at greater risk for developing cataracts, according to a University of Alabama Department of Epidemiology study recently published in the journal Current Eye Research and reported on InjuryBoard.com. The study of more than 31,000 adults aged 40 years and older, which was part of the ongoing National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), found that participants who reported cataracts were 59 percent more likely to report that they had used SJW for at least a year.

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The federal government has launched a new section of its web site called the Drywall Information Center. The agency developed the section in an effort to field consumer questions and complaints about the influx of tainted Chinese-made drywall to the U.S. that occurred in 2006 and 2007 when domestic drywall supplies ran low.

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