Sunday, July 25, 2010

Kariño Baby Pacifers Distributed by Anotonio Flores Recalls Pacifiers Due to Choking Hazard





Kariño Baby Pacifiers distributed by Antonio Flores of San Ysirdo, CA have been recalled, because the nipple can easily separate from the base posing a choking hazard. The pacifer fails to comply with federal safety standards for the design and manufacture of this product in that the pacifer handle is too long and the mouth gaurd is too small and there are no ventilation holes on the mouth guard. The product causes both a choking and aspiration hazard to young children using the product. The pacifer has a ring shaped handle and a round shaped mouth guard. "Kariño" is printed on the handle side of the mouth guard, and "Mygra" is printed on one side of the handle. The nipple is filled with corn syrup. Consumers should immediately remove the recalled pacifiers away from children and contact Antonio Flores for a refund or exchange by calling collect at 619.395.4543 Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. PT.
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CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.

For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Friday, July 16, 2010

Portable Playard Tent by Tots in Mind Recalled Due to Strangulation Hazard



Portable Indoor Outdoor Playard Tents Plus Cabana Kits by Tots in Mind, Inc. have been recalled, because the clips that attach the tent to the top of the playard can break or be removed by a child allowing a child to lift the tent and become entrapped at the neck between the rigid playard frame and the metal base rod of the tent. This poses a risk of strangulation to the child occupant. At least one 2-year-old boy in December 2008 in Vinalhaven, Maine has died as a result of the use of this product. The boy was found hanging with his neck entrapped between the playard frame and the metal base rod of the tent that had been partially tied by pieces of nylon rope and partially attached by clips. The tent was tied to the playard because the child was able to pop off the clips. Apparently, the child became entrapped while attempting to climb out of the playard. In three other incidents, children were able to remove one or more clips and place their necks between the tent and the playard. The children were not injured.

The dome-shaped white-colored mesh tent is designed to fit over playards as small as 28 inches by 40 inches or as large as 31 inches by 44 inches to contain a child. There are 12 plastic clips to secure the base of the tent to the top rail of the playard through button holes along the bottom of the tent. The tent has a zippered side for putting in and taking out the child. The cribs were made in China and sold at Walmart, Amazon.com and various baby and children’s stores nationwide from January 2005 through February 2010 for about $60. Consumers should immediately discontinue using the playard tents and contact Tots in Mind to get free replacement clips. Replacement clips will be available in late August or early September 2010. Contact Tots in Mind toll-free at 800.626.0339 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s website at www.TotsinMind.com
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CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.

For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Tween Brands Recalls Children's Metal Jewelry Due to High Levels of Cadmium







Approximately 137,000 various metal necklaces, bracelets and earrings imported and distributed by Tween Brands, Inc. have been recalled, because the children's metal jewelry is reported to have been contaminated with high levels of cadmium. Cadmium has been found to be toxic if ingested by children and can cause adverse health effects.This recall involves 19 different styles of children's metal necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Styles and shapes of the jewelry include hearts, heart locks, butterflies, cupcakes, peace signs and crowns. Some jewelry contains the words "Best," "Friends" or "Forever" and/or "BFF." Only style numbers listed below are included in this recall. The style number is included on the jewelry's packaging.

Style Photo Style Photo
Justice Butterfly
Earrings
Style #5837 Justice Cupcake
Earrings (White)
Style #5469
Justice Cupcake
Earrings (Dark Pink)
Style #5814 Justice Cupcake
Earrings (Light Pink)
Style #5758
Justice Cupcake
Earrings (Brown)
Style #5467 Justice Cupcake
Earrings (Light Blue)
Style #5759


Style Photo
Justice "BFF"
Bracelet
Style #3609
Justice "BFF"
Bracelet
Style #5778
Justice "BFF"
Bracelet
Style #5782


Style Photo Style Photo
Justice Heart Lock
Necklace
Style #6905 Justice Cupcake
Necklace (Light Blue)
Style #6928
Justice Cupcake
Necklace (Royal Blue)
Style #6936 Justice Cupcake Necklace (Light Pink)
Style #6927
Justice Cupcake
Necklace (White)
Style #6929 Justice "BFF"
Necklace
Style #6904
Justice Cupcake
Necklace (Dark Pink)
Style #6937 Justice Heart
Necklace
Style #6907
Justice Peace Sign
Necklace
Style #6912 Justice Crown
Necklace
Style #6908

The jewelry was manufactured in China and sold by Justice and Limited Too stores and online at www.shopjustice.com from November 2008 through February 2010 for between $7 and $16. Consumers should immediately remove the recalled jewelry away from children and return it to any Justice or Limited Too store for a full refund. For additional information, contact Tween Brands at 800.934.4497 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's web site at www.shopjustice.com

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CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data



The NY Times reports,

In the fall of 1999, the drug giant SmithKline Beecham secretly began a study to find out if its diabetes medicine, Avandia, was safer for the heart than a competing pill, Actos, made by Takeda.

Avandia’s success was crucial to SmithKline, whose labs were otherwise all but barren of new products. But the study’s results, completed that same year, were disastrous. Not only was Avandia no better than Actos, but the study also provided clear signs that it was riskier to the heart.

But instead of publishing the results, the company spent the next 11 years trying to cover them up, according to documents recently obtained by The New York Times. The company did not post the results on its Web site or submit them to federal drug regulators, as is required in most cases by law.

“This was done for the U.S. business, way under the radar,” Dr. Martin I. Freed, a SmithKline executive, wrote in an e-mail message dated March 29, 2001, about the study results that was obtained by The Times. “Per Sr. Mgmt request, these data should not see the light of day to anyone outside of GSK,” the corporate successor to SmithKline.

The heart risks from Avandia first became public in May 2007, with a study from a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who used data the company was forced by a lawsuit to post on its own Web site. In the ensuing months, GlaxoSmithKline officials conceded that they had known of the drug’s potential heart attack risks since at least 2005.

But the latest documents demonstrate that the company had data hinting at Avandia’s extensive heart problems almost as soon as the drug was introduced in 1999, and sought intensively to keep those risks from becoming public. In one document, the company sought to quantify the lost sales that would result if Avandia’s cardiovascular safety risk “intensifies.” The cost: $600 million from 2002 to 2004 alone, the document stated.

Mary Anne Rhyne, a GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman, said that the company had not provided the results of its study because they “did not contribute any significant new information.”

The company said that Avandia was safe and that Dr. Freed no longer worked for GlaxoSmithKline.

A panel of experts will meet Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether Avandia should still be sold and whether it is ethical to test Avandia directly against Actos.

Whether to withdraw Avandia is a question that has split the F.D.A., with some officials arguing that the drug is useful despite its risks and others insisting that it must be withdrawn.

According to the documents, Dr. John Jenkins, director of the agency’s office of new drugs, who has argued internally that Avandia should remain on the market, briefed the company extensively on the agency’s internal debate.

“It is clear the office of new drugs is trying to find minimal language that will satisfy the office of drug safety,” a top company official wrote in an e-mail message after he spoke with Dr. Jenkins, according to a sealed deposition obtained by The Times.

In the deposition, Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang, a former supervisor in the drug safety office who left the F.D.A. after she was disciplined for recommending that Avandia’s heart warnings be strengthened, said of Dr. Jenkins’ conversations with GlaxoSmithKline, “This should not happen, and the fact that these kind of things happen, I mean, I think people have to make a determination about the leadership at the F.D.A.”

An F.D.A. spokeswoman said the agency would not comment on the contents of the deposition.

Members of Congress, where the Avandia case has led to legislative changes, said they were outraged at GlaxoSmithKline’s behavior.

“When drug companies withhold data regarding safety concerns about their medicines, they put patients at risk,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Baucus and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s ranking Republican, spent years investigating GlaxoSmithKline’s development of Avandia.

Besides the trial comparing Avandia with Actos, the company also conducted trials comparing Avandia with glyburide, a cheaper and older diabetes medicine.

When Rhona A. Berry, a company official, asked about publishing two of the trials, Dr. Freed responded in an e-mail message dated July 20, 2001, that referred to Avandia by the abbreviation of its generic name, rosiglitazone: “Rhona — Not a chance. These put Avandia in quite a negative light when folks look at the response of the RSG monotherapy arm,” the message said. “It is a difficult story to tell and we would hope that these do not see the light of day.”

Hiding the results of negative clinical trials was once widespread in the drug industry.

But after GlaxoSmithKline was found in 2004 to have hidden data that showed that its antidepressant, Paxil, led children and teenagers to have more suicidal thoughts and behaviors, the company settled a lawsuit by agreeing to publicly post data from all of its trials. In 2007, Congress mandated such disclosures. But the postings are often little more than cryptic references, so the issue is far from resolved.

With Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline has done more than hide trial data. An F.D.A. reviewer who closely examined a landmark Avandia clinical trial called “Record,” found at least a dozen instances in which patients taking Avandia suffered serious heart problems that were not counted in the trial’s tally of adverse events, mistakes that further obscured Avandia’s heart risks.

The company’s conduct of the Record trial has received sharp criticism from medical leaders for other reasons as well. To compare Avandia and Actos in 1999, researchers at SmithKline measured Actos’s effects in patients in the same way that they had conducted earlier trials of Avandia so that the results for the two drugs could be compared.

When the results of the study suggested that Avandia was more dangerous than Actos, the company decided against further comparisons.


If you or a loved one was prescribed and took the medication Avandia you should consult your physician immediately.

If you or a loved one suffered a heart attack while taking the drug Avandia, you should contact an attorney immediately. In Idaho, the statute of limitations for personal injuries arising from a defective product is two (2) years from the date of the act, omission or occurrence which forms the subject of the complaint.

_________________________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.

For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Monday, July 12, 2010

Take the Test -



Look out for cyclists - motorcyclists and bicyclists!

_________________________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

MyPower ALL Plus External Batteries by Tekkeon Inc. Recalled Due to Fire Hazard



Tekkeon Inc. has recalled its MyPower ALL Plus External Laptop Battery, because the battery cell may short-circuit, overheat and pose a fire hazard to the consumer. The myPower ALL Plus External Laptop Battery is a universal rechargeable battery used to power laptop computers, MP3 players, mobile phones, DVD players and other portable devices. It is black with “Tekkeon” printed on the front. The model number, MP3750, is printed on a label on the back. Consumers should immediately discontinue using the recalled batteries and contact Tekkeon for a free replacement battery. For more information, contact Tekkeon toll-free at 888.787.5888, or visit the firm’s website at http://www.tekkeon.com/recall.
_________________________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.

For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Monday, July 5, 2010

Children's Coin Purse and Jewelry by Daisco Recalled Due to Excessive Levels of Lead



Children’s Coin Purse and Jewelry by Daiso California LLC of Hayward, Calif. have been recalled, because the surface paint on the zippers of the coin purses and the clasps on the jewelry contain high levels of lead. This recall involves children’s coin purses with rainbow stripes and children’s earrings and necklaces that have blue, pink, red, white and yellow colored droplets. “The Coin Purse” and “Mobile Case Coin Puase” are printed on the tag attached to the purse. “Colorful Drop Accessory Bracelet” is printed on the front of the necklace packages and “Colorful Drop Accessory Pierce” is printed on the front of the earring packages. The tag and packaging have “Produced for Daiso Japan” on either the front or back. Consumers should immediately remove the recalled products away from children and contact Daiso for a full refund. For more information, contact Daiso toll-free at 888.580.8841 between 9:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. PT Monday through Friday or visit the firm's website at www.daisorecall.com
_________________________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.

For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com

Saturday, July 3, 2010

It's the 4th of July Weekend!! Remember Safety First!


It's the 4th of July weekend! A time for celebration and fun with the family. Children are drawn to fireworks like a moth to a light. Hence, it's time to remind ourselves and our children and grandchildren the need to consider safety first regarding the use of fireworks. Each year emergency rooms see victims injured due to the misuse of fireworks. The National Safety Council on Fireworks Safety has published the following video regarding the safe use of fireworks.



- Never allow children to use fireworks without adult supervision;
- Make sure that if children are near and around fireworks that fireworks are used consistent with the manufacturer's recommendations;
- When fireworks are used, place them on a flat surface away from children in the case of a misfire;
- Have a bucket of water or two to use - a place to put used sparklers in so children don't burn themselves by stepping on a burned out sparkler;
- Have a garden hose ready for use "just in case" grass or other items are inadvertently set on fire from the use of fireworks;
- Don't allow children around a "firework" while lighting or deploying a firework;
- Don't attempt to relight a dud;
- Afterwards, make sure you soak a used firework before attempting to put the same out with the garbage to prevent a fire from developing; and
- The best and safest form of enjoying fireworks is to see them deployed by professionals!

Have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July!
_________________________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you or a family member have been injured or damaged due to the fault or responsibility of someone else, an industrial accident or by a dangerous or defective product, drug or toxic substance, contact Alan Morton for a no obligation, free consultation.For additional information contact:

Alan L. Morton
MORTON LAW OFFICES, CHARTERED
1005 North Eighth Street
Post Office Box 420
Boise, ID 83701-0420
Telephone: 208.344.5555
Toll Free: 866.946.1669 [866.WIN.1.NOW]
Facsimile: 208.342.2509
Email: amorton@mortonlawyers.com
Website: www.mortonlawyers.com