Hardesty, Tyde, Green & Ashton, P.A. blog

People who have gone through hernia repair operations will tell you that it is no easy surgery. Even if successful, patients often go through months of therapy and significantly reduced physical activity to avoid reinjuring the abdominal wall. Repairs can fail and require additional surgery.

The usual repair involves the placement of a mesh-like patch material to hold the edges of the hernia together so that healing can occur. Recently, a manufacturer has had to recall one of these patches because of potentially serious complications. C. R. Bard, Inc. and its subsidiary, Davol, Inc., have recalled the Kugel patch because some versions of the plastic patch have broken and cut through patients' internal organs and tissues. The FDA has been notified of at least 80 cases involving serious injury, including death.

If you have had a hernia repair involving use of a Kugel patch, you should immediately contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney to determine your rights and options.

The FDA has just approved a new rapid test for viral meningitis, a disease which involves an infection of the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the spinal cord and brain. There are two types of meningitis, viral and bacterial. Patients with viral meningitis typically recover in a couple of weeks even without medical treatment. Bacterial meningitis is another matter, however. Failure to rapidly provide proper medical treatment can result in brain damage, hearing loss or death in as little as a couple of days.

Although the new Xpert EV test only identifies viral meningitis, the less serious variety, it is helpful in allowing doctors to clearly diagnose and treat the illness. That is, if your symptoms are consistent with meningitis, ruling out the less serious form means you likely have the serious form and need prompt, aggressive treatment.

Symptoms of meningitis can include fever, headaches, nausea, confusion and neck stiffness. Sometimes these symptoms are mistaken for those of a common cold. If they are more significant than you have previously experienced with a cold, however, you should seek medical assistance immediately.

If you or a loved one has been significantly injured as a result of meningitis, you should have an experienced medical malpractice lawyer review your case to determine if proper care was provided.

Daytona Bike week is in full swing. Lots of fun seeing new bikes, vintage bikes and unfortunately wrecked bikes and ruined lives. Bike safety is tremendously important on our roads and highways and of particular importance in Daytona Beach, Florida due to the huge concentration of people riding at the same time. Bike safety includes proper training/ experience, clothing and safety equipment. It also involves having all your facilities when you ride in order to employ proper defensive driving techniques. Sadly intoxication from alcohol, drugs or both have caused terrible injuries and death already this week. Most of the accidents that were preventable involved drivers of cars and /or bikes that were under the influence. Below is a interesting study on bike safety. Use your common sense and stay safe!http//www.motorcyclecruiser.com/streetsurvival/riding_drunk/

America Online (AOL) is the latest corporation to run a feature story on their web service that features outlandish stories about litigation and lawsuits in the United States. Unfortunately, the inaccuracies in this story are an appalling insult to responsible journalism. The facts of the "cases" are changed significantly or made up entirely.
One only has to step back and take a look at the true facts and see why AOL has such an interest in promoting fiction and propaganda in an attempt to discredit the American justice system by diverting attention from their systematic violations of the law. AOL's problems with breaking the law are becoming legendary. Below are just a few examples of their recent failures:

*Just this week AOL agreed to pay $246 million to compensate the University of California for losses to their pension and endowment funds after the company's stock prices plunged in 2001-2002. The University alleged that AOL inflated it stock price prior to its merger with Time-Warner by misrepresenting its sales, revenues and subscriber numbers.

*On February 26, 2007, Time Warner reached agreements to pay $405 million to settle lawsuits related to past accounting problems at AOL.

*On February 7, 2007, AOL reached a $105 million settlement with the California State Teachers' Retirement System that claimed that AOL executives and bankers had artificially boosted the value of its stocks prior to buying Time Warner.

*In December, 2006, AOL settled a securities fraud case for $50 million with the state of Alaska.

*In September, 2006, AOL members joined together in a class action suing AOL for violating their privacy by posting their search queries online. AOL made public the search queries of over 600,000 members.

*In January, 2006, AOL settled a class action for $25 million after the company was accused of wrongfully billing its customers.

*In 2005, Time Warner settled a $2.4 billion securities fraud lawsuit stemming from their misstatement of advertising revenue on the eve of its merger with AOL.

*In 2004, AOL settled two class actions that claimed it had continued to bill plaintiffs after their subscriptions were cancelled.