BP must pay more than $100 million in damages for exposing contract workers to toxic substances at its Texas City oil refinery in April 2007, a federal jury in Galveston said in the latest setback for the troubled plant. The mammoth verdict arose out of a case brought by a…
A Sioux Falls woman is accusing Johnson and Johnson and two mining companies of failing for decades to warn consumers about a link between ovarian cancer and talcum powder. Deane Berg, 52, applied talc-based body powder to her perineum each day after showering from 1975 to 2007, she says in…
After 13 hours of intensifying pain, two trips to the emergency room and two CT scans, doctors finally found what was ailing Lottie Green. In her left lung, the pulmonologist told her, was the largest blood clot they had ever seen and there were others in her right lung as…
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is weighing further regulation of three drugs used to create high-contrast images on MRI scans, based on a new analysis that suggests they carry a higher risk of causing a rare, but potentially fatal disease. The issue, marks a setback for GE Healthcare (GE),…
A consumer advocacy group is petitioning the government to ban the weight loss pill Meridia because a recent study suggests it increases risk of heart attack, stroke and death. A letter Thursday from Public Citizen calls on the Food and Drug Administration to pull Abbott Laboratories’ drug from the U.S.…
A funeral is set for a retired Indiana National Guard commander who testified in October that exposure to a lethal carcinogen in Iraq caused his cancer. Lt. Col. James C. Gentry, 52, Williams, Ind., died of lung cancer. His death is a marker in a pending federal lawsuit; his life…
Once upon a time, asbestos was practically everywhere. Because the material causes devastating forms of cancer and lung disease, huge product-liability litigation sprung up. That led to huge settlements, which led to the establishment of huge trusts, created to assure payment to millions of current and future claimants. Some $20…
A Florida jury ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema. The Broward Circuit Court jury assessed $56.6 million in past and future medical expenses against the company, part of Altria Group Inc, as…
Two men who became seriously ill after working at a Hicksville magazine distributor located atop a former nuclear fuel plant have been awarded $12 million in a federal negligence lawsuit against Verizon Communications Inc. Gerard DePascale, and Liam Neville, each were awarded $5 million, and DePascale’s wife, Joanne, $2 million,…
Maximiliano Calcaño is 2 and was born with no arms. Maximiliano’s mother, Anajai Calcaño, lives in a small house with no indoor plumbing in a rural village in northern Dominican Republic, not far from where coal ash generated by Virginia-based AES Corp. wound up at the edge of the sea.…