Americans are being sickened by tainted eggs harboring salmonella food poisoning. But even non egg-eaters may be sickened by the news of how the food system failed them.

In its probe of two Iowa plants from which 550 million eggs were recalled, the federal government has found staggering evidence of manure, rats, flies and other insects contaminating the egg supply.

At Wright County Egg (owned by the ironically named Quality Egg), manure was piled so highly around the hen house that doors could not be closed. At Hillandale Farms, rodents ran rampantly, escaped hens tracked manure into the hen house and liquid manure was found seeping from a manure pit.

Such sordid conditions are like a case study in how to get salmonella food poisoning — or specifically in this instance, salmonella enteritidis. That bacteria has infected around 1,500 people so far, causing stomach-wrenching diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration and cramps. And since the eggs were distributed across the country to at least 14 states, such suffering can be widespread.

While salmonella food poisoning is not normally fatal and usually subsides after several days of distress, it can be fatal for the very young and the very old, who lack strong immunity defense systems. And anyone who suffers from salmonella may be beset by medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering.

A food poisoning lawyer or attorney with Jim S. Adler & Associates can fight to help such victims gain the financial compensation they legally deserve. If you or a loved one has been harmed by this outbreak of food poisoning, you may have the basis for an egg recall lawsuit.

But keep these things in mind: You must be able to produce a carton indicating you purchased eggs from the tainted lots, and you must have a physician’s diagnosis that you’ve suffered salmonella food poisoning.

The egg recall includes the brands Lucerne, Albertson, Ralph’s, Mountain Dairy, Sunshine, Boomsma’s, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Dutch Farms, Kemps and Lund.

Eggs affected come in cartons with certain codes and dates on the end. These include codes P-1026, P-1413 and P-1946, as well as dates, in coded form, from 136 to 225. For a refund, persons who did not eat the eggs may return them in their original carton to the point of purchase.

Due to this tainted egg crisis, the Food and Drug Administration plans to investigate all egg-producing facilities which have more than 50,000 hens. Such plants account for 80 per cent of the eggs produced in America.

Meanwhile,victims of salmonella enteritidis food poisoning have another option: They can alert a personal injury attorney or lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates and launch the process of gaining their recovery — and their peace of mind.

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Emmy-nominated actress Jane Lynch, who plays fiery cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester on hit Fox TV show Glee, has joined LG Text Ed, a new campaign to coach parents how to teach teens to use mobile phones responsibly and avoid distracted driving.

Lynch will appear in webisodes for the campaign on driving while distracted, and she also will be a member of its council. The effort is sponsored by LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, a division of South Korea’s LG Electronics.

In some ways it’s ironic yet fitting that a star of Glee would lead such efforts to curb distracted driving, which kills 6,000 and injures half a million Americans each year. On Glee, unlike in the real world, while high school students use cell phones, they do so sparingly. Rather, they’re more engaged with their immediate environment involving performing, competing and romancing, with scant texting or calling to add degrees of separation.

In today’s world, such behavior is more of an exception than a rule. A recent study by MTV showed that teens are fixated on their mobile devices and, when denied them, suffer “unplugged meltdown.” That’s why many teens admit to texting while driving, even though they’ve been told how dangerous it is.

The five webisodes featuring Lynch will be presented in the style of community service classes, in which she plays a rehabilitated “text offender” now urging others not to do what she did: text while driving. Notably, Lynch will offer advice to parents on how to teach their children that distracted driving can be dangerous, if not fatal.

Jim S. Adler & Associates strongly supports efforts to reduce driving distractions and save lives. A personal injury attorney or personal injury lawyer with the firm also can help those harmed by distracted drivers.

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Texas lawmakers know they must act, but how is the big question. Our state leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic deaths, and Dallas County is the nation’s third-worst for per capita drunk driving fatalities. Such tragic distinctions cannot continue.

One huge problem is that many drunk driving fatalities are caused by multiple offenders — people who already have been arrested as a drunk driver, but keep driving drunk anyway. While repeat offenders represent only 20 per cent of those arrested for drunk driving, they are a very dangerous one-fifth. How can they be rehabilitated — or kept from driving?

A recent Dallas Morning News report said Texas lawmakers can continue passing stricter laws to keep drunk drivers off streets, but that such laws haven’t worked well to date. Another option is to lessen financial penalties to drunk drivers, which would lead to fewer offenders opting for prison, rather than probation which includes substance abuse treatment.

One state senator wants a law which automatically and permanently revokes the license of anyone convicted of a second DUI offense. Sound extreme? Ask the suffering survivors of the 1,269 innocent Texans who were killed by drunk drivers in 2008 and since then, or the many thousands who suffered catastrophic injuries due to DUI car crash accidents.

Critics say this would only lead to more and more drunk drivers operating a vehicle without a license. For now, drunk drivers’ licenses are suspended for various amounts of time before being reinstated.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has other proposals, including adding more sobriety checkpoints and requiring ignition interlock devices to be installed in the vehicles of those who have driven drunk. Such devices analyze a person’s breath to determine if they are drunk and disable the car if that is the case.

We can’t know which measures Texas legislators will adopt, but one thing is clear: They must act. Otherwise they are tolerating the intolerable, and Texas’ grisly distinction as the America’s drunk driving capital will continue.

Jim S. Adler & Associates strongly supports MADD and other campaigns to fight drunk driving car accidents.

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Beverly Hills, CA plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan loved to send and receive messages via texts. But apparently he didn’t get one message until too late: Texting while driving kills.

Body reshaper of reality TV’s Heidi Montag, rock music’s Gene Simmons and Vince Neil and modeling’s Janice Dickinson, Ryan, 50, died Monday. It seems the Jeep he was driving veered off the Pacific Coast Highway and crashed upside-down at the bottom of a 200-foot embankment.

Police say he was texting at the time of the crash. He’d just taken a photo of his dog at a stop and sent it via Twitter. But instead of putting his communications device away, he kept using it while driving — and paid the ultimate price.

Such catastrophic accidents have become common in this age of putting unnecessary texts and phone calls above the life-or-death necessities of driving a vehicle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 6,000 Americans per year die in traffic accidents due to texting or cell phone distractions, and another half a million Americans are injured, many of them seriously.

That’s why 30 states and counting (but not yet Texas) have adopted laws banning texting while driving. California has such a law, but Dr. Ryan, like many people, either didn’t get the message or chose to disregard the texting law.

An irony is that Ryan was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash. Thus, he was obeying a law which, when first written, was decried by many as unenforceable. How can you make people wear seatbelts, and how can police know that they’re not?

But over the years the message has gotten through to millions of Americans that wearing seatbelts saves lives — and not wearing them contributes to tragedies. Now these same Americans need to get another message: Texting while driving leads to deaths and catastrophic injuries. Just look at the sad case of Dr. Frank Ryan.

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According to Houston’s Fox 26 TV, Harris County residents are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than those of any other highly-populous county in the United States. (Harris County ranks third, with more than 4 million residents.)

This sobering threat to public safety is why local law enforcement agencies are gearing up to bring down the number of drunk drivers. They’re doing this via a multi-agency crackdown. Through Labor Day weekend, law officers will be working overtime to spot drunk drivers and get them off our roads, streets and highways.

Another part of the campaign is Choose Your Ride. This program emphasizes that those who drink should do anything but drive a vehicle. Instead, they are urged to take a cab or a bus, or ride with a sober friend or designated driver. Otherwise, they may wind up riding with a police officer — to jail.

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In the early 1990s, actor James Marshall was on top of the world. He’d starred in revolutionary TV series Twin Peaks and also starred in Oscar-nominated military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, alongside top-billed Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

Then Marshall’s career hit a roadblock: He began suffering serious digestive disorders caused by his using the acne treatment medication Accutane.

Like millions of Americans, he’d trusted that Roche Pharmaceuticals provided a safe product. He — and they — were wrong. Roche knew that Accutane caused major health problems, but sold it anyway, to the tune of over $1 billion in annual profits.

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America’s teens seem to have a disconnect between what they’ve been told and what they do. They’ve been told and given fair warning that distracted driving is deadly, killing 6,000 Americans yearly and injuring hundreds of thousands. Yet 86 per cent of teen drivers indulge in distracted driving anyway, often in the form of texting or making cell phone calls while at the wheel.

This finding came via a study conducted by Seventeen magazine and AAA auto club and reported by USA Today. It reported other common forms of distracted driving among teens as eating, adjusting a music device, applying makeup and driving with four or more other teens in the vehicle.

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A Dallas suburb’s mayor and her daughter are dead, and fentanyl pain patches found in the aftermath — while not blamed — have drawn attention to the powerful narcotic.

A medical examiner’s autopsy report was just released in the deaths of Coppell, TX Mayor Jayne Peters, 55, and daughter Corinne Peters, 19.  Both were found dead of gunshots at their home on July 13. The daughter’s death was ruled a homicide by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office, while the mother’s death was deemed “consistent” with being a “self-inflicted act.”

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Death. Taxes. Curbs on drivers texting.

Add the last to life’s inevitabilities, because the times they are a-changing. Thirty states now ban texting while driving, and more technology is arising to take that foolish distracted driving habit out of drivers’ hands.

The latest, reported by USA Today, is software designed to stop texting, emailing or web-browsing via wireless devices while a car is in motion. It’s being developed by an Irving, TX company called . and a Georgia company called Manage Mobility.

Their technology is being offered to government agencies and corporations, which are trying to  squelch the texting tide that’s causing thousands of traffic accident fatalities and injuries and billions of dollars in losses.

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The term “drug wars” often refers to violent cartels which bully, bribe and slaughter in the name of  illegal drug profits. But another drug war is assailing America, and no machine guns are used. Rather, it’s a war inflicted by huge pharmaceutical companies — often foreign-based — which knowingly sell deadly, defective drugs for years while reaping monstrous profits.

Take GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical giant whose negligence with deadly drugs seems to know no limits. GSK’s latest revealed outrage concerns diabetes medication Avandia, which carries a high risk of causing heart attacks. According to a recent New York Times investigation, GSK knew of this risk for 11 years yet covered it up, continuing to peddle its defective drug even though people were dying as a result.

In short, GSK knew it was killing people and did so anyway, all in the name of money.

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