If you are among the one million Americans who still take the brand name drug Avandia, you may want to join many others who have stopped taking it. That’s because yet another study of rosiglitazone, the drug used in Avandia, again has been shown to increase death rates in patients, particularly elderly patients with diabetes.

A new study by Harvard Medical School researchers, as reported this week in The New York Times, found that patients who took rosiglitazone had 15 per cent higher death rates than those who took pioglitazone, a comparable drug. The study also found a 13 per cent higher incidence of congestive heart failure in those taking rosiglitazone.

Both drugs are taken by persons with diabetes to help control their body sugar by enhancing their sensitivity to insulin, and the drugs often are taken along with other diabetes medicine. One goal is to enable patients to fend off taking insulin.

The trade-off is that both rosiglitazone and pioglitazone have been found to be dangerous by some researchers, including those who conducted a major study for the New England Journal of Medicine released last year.

The European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the American Diabetes Association both have eliminated rosiglitazone from their recommended treatments for type 2 diabetes. Also, consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen has urged the Food and Drug Administration to band rosiglitazone, not only for the heart problems it causes, but also because it may produce vision impairment, liver failure and other maladies.

Meanwhile, an estimated one million Americans continue to take rosiglitazone, often in the form of the brand name drug Avandia. If you are one of them, and if you have suffered any harmful effects as a result, contact a physician immediately. Then notify an Avandia lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates.

An experienced pharmaceutical lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates also offers a free case review.

Call an Avandia attorney with Jim S. Adler & Associates today at 1-800-505-1414 or fill out the firm’s online form for a free case review. Then launch the process of gaining your full and just financial recovery for your medical bills, your lost wages and your pain and suffering due to negative side effects of Avandia.

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Millions of Americans enjoy the rugged thrills of riding the little go-getters known as ATVs. But if you’re one of them, do you know what you drive? Is it an ATV — an all terrain vehicle –  or perhaps a UTV, a utility terrain vehicle? And do you have legal protection if such a vehicle fails you and causes an injury?

While ATV is an umbrella term for the small off-road recreational vehicles whose sales have topped seven million units, Yamaha would rather call its Rhino a UTV.

Why? Because designating the Rhino differently relieves Yamaha from federal safety standards applied to ATVs. And because muddying the waters with rotating terms confuses regulators with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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“Crash!” It’s a sudden sound for a sudden event — and often a tragic one, especially when it comes in a car accident.

Innocent people die each day on America’s streets and highways. Many may have been safe, cautious drivers with a good record. But when other drivers on the road are rampaging — by speeding, drinking and driving recklessly — even safe drivers are in danger, including a woman in Detroit this week.

She was minding her own business, riding in a car, when another vehicle, which was involved in a street race, slammed into her Saturn Ion. The blameless woman died soon after at a hospital.

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Now that many people have been killed or injured due to cell phone accidents — killed by drivers being distracted while calling or texting — the inevitable but gallingly slow process of legislatively addressing the problem is proceeding.

In Texas alone this week, some progress has been seen in communities around Houston, as well as in the capital city of Austin.

Austin’s public safety task force this week passed a resolution directing Austin City Council to have its city manager develop regulations to prohibit text-messaging while driving a car. The city manager and his staff are expected to create such a proposal and give it to city council members for consideration.

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