The company which owns the crashed cruise ship Costa Concordia has offered passengers on that failed trip an indemnity settlement for their lost luggage, travel expenses and medical costs.

According to an MSNBC.com report from Rome, Italy, Costa Cruises is offering passengers aboard that trip a total of $14,460 for “lost baggage and psychological trauma” that ensued after the massive cruise ship hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio two weeks ago today. Sixteen people are confirmed dead and another 16 are still considered missing. Continue Reading »

Pharmaceutical company Novartis AG has agreed to pay $99 million in a settlement with current and former sales associates over an unpaid overtime lawsuit.

More than 7,000 current and former employees of Novartis working as travelling sales representatives, mostly, filed the suit against the company claiming they worked long hours for no pay and don’t receive overtime pay even though they also don’t work for commissions.

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Chemicals commonly found in microwave popcorn and several other household products are likely destroying the efficacy of childhood vaccines.

According to a report at MSNBC.com, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) have the ability to lower the immune system responses to common vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus. Children who had concentrated or high levels of PFC in their blood were less likely to experience any benefits of the vaccines. This means they are likely to contract the disease the vaccine is designed to prevent.

PFCs are found in numerous other household products, like furniture upholstery clothing, shampoos and food packaging. Continue Reading »

A recently filed whistleblower lawsuit claims life insurers MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. have disregarded information they’ve obtained in order to not pay death benefits to beneficiaries.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the civil lawsuit has been filed in an Illinois court by Total Asset Recovery Services LLC. The accusing firm believes those life insurance companies have not paid as much as $524.3 million in death benefits on 4,766 policies since 1988 in Illinois.

Illinois’ Attorney General has an option to join this whistleblower lawsuit because among that $524-plus million are funds due to the state’s abandoned property fund. Continue Reading »

Members of the U.S. House are calling for one of its Committees to investigate the safety of two surgical devices, the Lap-Band gastric band and all forms of transvaginal mesh.

These medical devices have been associated with a rash of recent incidents of serious injuries associated with their use.

According to a Bloomberg report, House Democrats are pushing Republicans in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the safety of these medical devices. The Democrats, led by Rep. Henry Waxman, of California, believe the Committee should hold the manufacturers of the Lap-Band (Allergan Inc.) and as many as 32 different transvaginal mesh devices accountable for the checkered safety records of these devices in a short time on the market. Continue Reading »

Most of the important communications regarding prescription drug safety and side effects go unnoticed, according to the results of a recent study on their effectiveness.

According to a report from the online journal EndocrineToday.com, a University of Chicago team of researchers examined dozens of drug communications issued by the Food and Drug Administration since 1990 and found that only the most simply written, including those with clear instructions and those reiterated over a period of time were likely to be noticed.

Still, despite examining drug communications from a varying class of drugs and with different levels of specificity, the research team admits it is difficult to determine what makes an effective communication. Continue Reading »

A Texas woman has become the latest to file a lawsuit against the makers of the NuvaRing contraceptive, claiming she suffered deep vein thrombosis just a month after beginning the treatment.

According to The Southeast Texas Record, a local online legal journal, a Denton, Texas, woman seeks $10 million from a jury in a lawsuit she filed against Organon USA Inc., Organon Pharmaceuticals USA, Organon International Inc., Schering-Plough Corp. and Merck & Co. earlier this month in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

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The captain of the sunken Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia appeared in court today to answer charges of manslaughter, abandoning a ship and causing a shipwreck.

On Wednesday, Francesco Schettino asked to be kept under house arrest rather than be jailed until a trial date is set. Schettino, during a three-hour hearing, pleaded his side of the story of the hours following the moment he guided the massive cruise ship with more than 4,200 people on board into rocks off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio. Continue Reading »

The death toll at the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner off the coast of Italy was updated today to 11 as rescue workers fought worsening weather conditions in an attempt to find any survivors still aboard the vessel that’s half-floating in the Mediterranean Sea. At least another 23 people remained missing at last report, according to Sky News in the UK.

Also on Tuesday, as some of the remaining 4,200 people aboard the massive cruise liner were sought by rescue officials, Italian authorities were busy handling the details surrounding the criminal investigation against the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino. Schettino was placed under house arrest and has been charged with manslaughter, abandoning his ship and causing a shipwreck. Continue Reading »

Six people have been confirmed dead and another 16 unaccounted for after an Italian-owned cruise ship smashed into rocks of the shores of Tuscany over the weekend.

According to UK’s The Guardian, Costa Cruises, of Genoa, Italy, is apologizing for the behavior of the vessel’s captain just before the shit hit the rocks. The collision has caused the giant cruise ship to sink into the Mediterranean Sea, off the island of Giglio. Search-and-rescue efforts continued Monday but were eventually postponed due to dangerous swells in the sea. Continue Reading »