In a statement issued Monday, the FDA issued interim recommendations to help prevent additional problems. The federal regulatory agency indicates that since their initial safety notification about the potential CT scan problems in October, they have identified additional cases where patients were exposed to excess radiation of up to eight times the expected level during CT perfusion scans.

The newest findings seem to confirm FDA suspicions that there is a widespread problem with radiation overexposure with CT brain scans. Although all of the initial 200 reports came from one hospital, the latest reports come from a number of different hospitals using different CT scanning equipment.

As a result of the CT scan radiation overexposure, some patients suffered from hair loss and erythema, according to the FDA. Erythema is redness of the skin similar to sunburn and is a common side effect of radiotherapy treatment. The agency also said that the risk is not limited to CT brain profusion scans, but applies to all CT perfusion scans, including heart scans.

The ongoing investigation is being conducted to assess the scope of the CT scan problem and to determine whether any regulatory action is required. The agency has released a list of interim recommendations for radiologists and imaging facilities to follow while its investigation continues. The interim recommendations include:

• Facilities assess whether patients who underwent CT perfusion scans received excess radiation.
• Facilities review their radiation dosing protocols for all CT perfusion studies to ensure that the correct dosing is planned for each study.
• Facilities implement quality control procedures to ensure that dosing protocols are followed every time and the planned amount of radiation is administered.
• Radiologic technologists check the CT scanner display panel before performing a study to make sure the amount of radiation to be delivered is at the appropriate level for the individual patient.
• If more than one study is performed on a patient during one imaging session, practitioners should adjust the dose of radiation so it is appropriate for each study.

At least one CT scan radiation exposure lawsuit has already been filed against Ceders-Sinai Hospital. The case, filed in October by plaintiff Trevor Reese, seeks class action status for all patients who were subjected to high levels of radiation due to incorrectly administered CT scans at the hospital over an 18 month period. Rees alleges that he suffered radiation exposure symptoms, including reddened skin, burns, hair loss, and flaking of the scalp.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Alvin Johnson, in a complaint brought against the government over the actions of two VA surgeons, Antonio DeSalle and Donald Shields, who performed the October 2005 spine surgery.

According to the VA medical malpractice lawsuit, Johnson went to the VA medical center to have surgery on a ruptured disc in his back. During the surgery, the lawsuit alleges that DeSalle and Shields injected him with Surgifoam, which is used to absorb excess fluids in the area of the surgery. Some of the foam, which should have been removed, was left in Johnson’s back and expanded, pressing against his spinal cord. This resulted in permanent spinal damage that now requires Johnson to use a wheelchair.

Judge Feess said in his verdict that DeSalle and Shields were told by another doctor who took an MRI of Johnson’s back that his spine was compressed. However, Judge Feess said, the two doctors took no action to correct the problem.

The government was found liable for Johnson’s botched spine surgery, and he was awarded $4.34 million in damages. According to a report by Courthouse News Service, Johnson now depends on others for daily car and only has limited control of his arms and legs.

The radiation exposure lawsuit was filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court in California on behalf of Trevor Rees, seeking class action status for all patients who were subjected to high levels of radiation due to incorrectly administered CT scans at the hospital over an 18 month period.

The complaint comes less than a month after the FDA issued a safety alert warning that some CT brain perfusion scans may be giving patients overexposure to radiation. According to the alert issued on October 8, more than 200 patients were exposed to eight times the normal amount of radiation while receiving CT brain perfusion scans for diagnosis and treatment of strokes.

The FDA did not specifically identify Cedars-Sinai Hospital, but the Los Angeles hospital has since admitted that patients were accidentally exposed to higher-than-normal radiation. The incident has raised concerns that there may be a more widespread problem with radiation overexposure associated with the CT scans at hospitals throughout the United States.

Rees is the only plaintiff named in the CT scan lawsuit, alleging that he suffered radiation exposure symptoms after being scanned at the hospital; including reddening of the skin, burns, hair loss, and flaking of the scalp.

Cedars-Sinai Hospital maintains that while the radiation exposure levels were higher than they are supposed to be, the exposure was similar to that experienced by patients undergoing other procedures, such as angioplasty. Investigators found that the CT scan machines had been manually manipulated to produce better pictures, inadvertently increasing the amount of radiation exposure.

The hospital says that it has put in place new procedures to prevent over-exposure in the future, including rules that stipulate any changes to the machine’s settings will have to go through the hospital’s head CT technician. The hospital is also providing more training for technicians working with the machine, and has said that the overexposure experienced by Cedars-Sinai patients was “unacceptable.”

The FDA is investigating whether similar incidents are happening at other facilities, and warns that such incidents may be going unrecognized and unreported, leading to long-term overexposure for patients. After gathering more data about the situation, the FDA indicates that a determination will be made about whether there are more widespread risks and the need for any actions.

In the interim, regulators are advising that all facilities performing CT scans should review their CT protocols and pay close attention to dose indices displayed on the machines’ control panels. Operators should “make sure the values displayed reasonably correspond to the doses normally associated with the protocol,” the warning stated. “Confirm this again after the patient has been scanned.”

The FDA is asking that any incidents of CT overexposure or other adverse CT events be reported to FDA’s MedWatch program.

The Toyota lawsuits claim that the automaker was too slow in recalling about one million 4Runners produced between 1990 and 1995 after they discovered the defective steering rods, which allegedly snapped in each of the four accidents, causing four deaths, including an infant.

Toyota recalled the vehicles in 2005, but an investigation in Japan after a 2004 accident suggested that company executives knew of the potential steering rod problem for years and ignored the risk.

About 330,000 affected vehicles were recalled in Japan in 2004 due to the steering rods, which can break under extreme steering conditions. However, one million of the same vehicles in the United States were not recalled until 2005. In 2006, the Japanese transportation ministry admonished the car maker regarding its recall procedures and ordered improvements.

The consolidated wrongful death lawsuits against Toyota claim that the company did not inform the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it had received complaints about the steering defect in the U.S. at the same time that it recalled the vehicles in Japan.

Toyota also faces a number of other product liability lawsuits over the 4Runner, including claims that some of the vehicles are inherently unstable and lack adequate safety equipment.

Toyota 4Runner wrongful death lawsuits were filed this summer by the families of Jeffrey Bachman and Elise Obediente. Bachman died in April 2008 when his 1998 Toyota 4Runner SUV rolled over while he attempted to change lanes on Interstate 95 north of Wade, North Carolina. Obediente died in May 2009 when her 4Runner rolled over as she over-steered to avoid a vehicle involved in another accident. In both Bachman and Obediente’s accidents, the drivers were partially ejected from their vehicles due to roof crush damage.

Both of those Toyota 4Runner rollover lawsuits contain similar allegations that the SUV’s high center of gravity and narrow track width give it a known propensity for rollover accidents that Toyota either knew or should have known about before selling the vehicle to the public. The lawsuits allege that Toyota failed to disclose knowledge that the vehicle had performed poorly in safety tests and could tip over at speeds as low as 32 miles per hour.

Last month we reported that a former high-ranking attorney for Toyota, Dimitrios P. Biller, disclosed that his former employer routinely withheld evidence involving weak and poorly designed roofs used in Toyota SUVs and pick-up trucks. As a result of the allegations, several attorneys are seeking to reopen prior Toyota rollover lawsuits.

The hospital malpractice lawsuit was brought on behalf of Paris Campen, who is now five years old, in the Superior Court of California in Los Angles against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The complaint alleged that that hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) negligently failed to diagnose and treat a case of meningitis when the child was just over a month old.

As a result of the bacterial infection misdiagnosis, Campen developed meningitis. She suffered permanent brain damage when the doctors waited eight hours to treat her with antibiotics after she began showing symptoms. According to the Los Angeles Times, Campen now requires physical and behavioral therapy, and has a shunt implanted to drain excess fluids from her brain.

Bacterial meningitis is a serious, but treatable illness caused by bacterial infection. It results in an inflammation of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), determining if someone suffers from bacterial meningitis early is crucial for treatment to avoid brain damage, hearing loss, or learning disabilities. It is treatable with antibiotics, but can cause permanent damage or death if it the infection is not diagnosed.

The Hydroxycut lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging that the makers of the dietary supplement made fraudulent, false and misleading statements, violated deceptive trade practice laws and received unjust enrichment off th sale of a product for which they made unsubstantiated claims of safety an effectiveness.

Iovate Health Sciences issued a Hydroxycut recall on May 1, after the FDA urgd consumers to immediately stop using the at least 14 different versions of the product due to a risk of liver damage and hepatoxicity that resulted in at least one death. According to the FDA, there have been 23 reports of Hydroxycut problems involving liver damage, including several individuals who required a liver transplant.

Hydroxycut side effects have also been associated with reports of seizures, heart problems and a rare form of muscle damage known as rhabdomyolysis.

The new lawsuit is at least the second Hydroxycut class action filed in the United States, joining one filed in Tennessee in May. A class action Hydroxycut lawsuit has also been filed in Canada, alleging that Iovate failed to provide proper warnings and misled consumers about the safety of the weight-loss aid.

Hydroxycut accounted for 90% of weight-loss supplement sales before the recall, and Iovate reported selling more than 9 million units in 2008. Hydroxycut was not a drug approved or regulated by FDA because it was a dietary supplement. However the agency is allowed to step in even on unregulated drugs when serious health risks have been identified.

In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 38-year old Dax Pierson was awarded $18.3 million against Ford Motor Corp. on May 27, 2009. The case was filed over a 2005 accident which left Pierson a quadriplegic after a Ford passenger van rolled over in Iowa.

According to a report in The Contra Costa Times, the accident occurred while Pierson was traveling with his electronic hip-hop band, and the vehicle drove off an icy road and rolled over in a ditch. In the Ford passenger van rollover accident, Pierson’s seat came loose, causing him to hit his head on the roof of the van.

As a result of the injuries, Pierson lost the use of both legs and most of his arms, ending his ability to sing and play instruments. A federal jury awarded $12.3 million for medical expenses and lost earnings, plus an additional $6 million for pain and suffering, finding that Ford was 100% liable for the injuries.

In a similar rollover lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, former Hong Kong field hockey player, Sukhsagar Pannu of Simi Valley, was awarded $21.1 million on May 18 by Judge Robert H. O’Brien. Pannu, 53, was paralyzed in a 2003 Land Rover Rollover accident, which occurred when his vehicle was sideswiped by a 16-year-old driver.

According to a report in The Los Angeles Times, Judge O’Brien directly cited the Land Rover Discovery sport utility vehicle’s high center of gravity and the construction of its roof as major factors in Pannu’s spinal cord injury, which requires that he receive around-the-clock care from his parents and three children.

The Land Rover brand was previously owned by Ford, however Jaguar Land Rover was recently sold to Indian automaker Tata Motors together with all of its liabilities. Lawyers for Tata Motors say they intend to appeal the product liability lawsuit decision.

The National Traffic Safety Administration estimates that about 37 percent of fatal crashes are due to SUV rollover accidents. In 2006, the Insurance Information Institute found that SUVs had the highest occupant fatality rate of any vehicle type in rollover accidents, with a fatality rate of 7.77 per 100,000 registered vehicles. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute found that 8,026 occupants of SUVs died in 2006.

Last month, Union International Food Company issued a recall for spices, oils and other products that were distributed to hundreds of Asian restaurants and supermarkets. The recall was issued after the products were linked to a food poisoning outbreak that has sickened more than 60 people in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

In what is believed to be the first lawsuit filed as a result of the salmonella outbreak, David Navarrett alleges that he became ill in March after eating foods prepared with the tainted spices.

The complaint was filed in the California Superior Court in Los Angeles against Union International Food Company, alleging that the company’s negligence and breach of warranty caused his injuries.

Most of the reported cases of salmonella poisoning as a result of the Union International Food Company spice recall have occurred in California, where 45 people throughout 18 counties have become sick.

The list of recalled spices and other products include those sold under the Lian How and Uncle Chen brand name. While the Lian How brand is primarily sold in bulk too restaurants, Uncle Chen peppers and spices are sold at supermarkets and other retail stores.

Salmonella food poisoning could produce symptoms like diarrhea, fever, nausea and abdominal pain. In severe cases, where the organism enters the blood stream, it can cause severe arterial infections, arthritis, endocarditis or death. While most healthy adults recover within a few weeks, young children, the elderly and those with a weak immune system are more susceptible to complications.

The train crash occurred on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train collided head-on with a Metrolink commuter train in Chatsworth, Los Angeles.

Investigations have suggested that the Metrolink train ran through a red control light, and the Metrolink train’s engineer may have been suffering from fatigue and sending text messages around the time of the crash.

The commuter train accident lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, and two of the cases involve wrongful death claims.

According to the Associated Press, the lawsuits name a variety of defendants, including Veolia Transportation, their subsidiary, Connex Railroad, who contract to provide the engineers who run the Metrolink trains, and the estate of the train’s engineer, Robert Sanchez. Some lawsuits also named the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the regional rail authority that operates Metrolink and other contractors.

The collision was the worst train accident that has occurred in the United States in almost 15 years.

About six weeks after the crash, the Metrolink board announced that they approved millions of dollars in safety improvements. They will be adding Automatic Train Stop technology, replacing incandescent light bulbs with light-emitting diodes on signals, and adding more engineers and conductors.

Another commuter train crash near Chicago in 2005 killed two people and injured dozens of others. In November 2008, the families of the two passengers who died settled their train accident lawsuits for a combined total of $11 million, and a number of other personal injury lawsuits are still pending from the crash.