On Feb. 13, 2003, Alicia M. Vander Meulen, then 19 of Arkdale, was pregnant when she was involved in a two-vehicle crash with a pickup truck driven by Brett R. Anderson, then 17 of Wisconsin Rapids, on Eighth Street South. As a result of the crash, Vander Meulen’s unborn child was stillborn, according to court documents.

In February 2004, Shannon E. Tesar, the unborn child’s father, filed a wrongful death suit against Anderson and American Family Insurance, the insurance company for both drivers. On July 23, 2009, Wood County Circuit Court Judge Edward Zappen Jr., now retired, granted a motion from American Family Insurance to dismiss the company from liability in the case. Thursday’s appellate court decision reverses Zappen’s ruling and sends the case back to Circuit Court.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Department Professor Peter Cartensen said he had not yet read the appellate court decision. However, injury or wrongful death lawsuits involving unborn children are fairly common, he said.

American Family Insurance probably will try to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court to ask it to review the decision, Cartensen predicted. Depending on what claims the suit is making, caps on restitution most likely would keep any payment from being burdensome to an insurance company. However, the number of future claims that could be filed would make it beneficial for the company to appeal, he said.

Tesar filed a claim under Vander Meulen’s insurance policy, according to court documents. In his wrongful death suit, Tesar claimed that both drivers were partially negligent, resulting in the death of the unborn baby. Zappen said it was a slippery slope to allow the lawsuit to proceed against the insurance company under Vander Meulen’s policy.

The District IV Court of Appeals opinion released Thursday addressed the arguments made by American Family Insurance attorneys. The company said the injury is too remote from the negligence, according to the decision. The court said deaths from automobile crashes are common and, although not as common, the death of a fetus is not remote from the negligence of the drivers.

The insurance company also said the case could open the way for fraudulent claims. The court’s opinion, however, stated there is no reason to suppose people will fake fetal deaths resulting from automobile crashes.

Insurance company attorneys recognized that — for the purposes of state statutes — a viable fetus is a person.

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The FDA advised Nutraloid Labs Inc. that lab analysis of Ejaculoid XXTREME, Lot 79935, and Stimuloid II, Lot 79936, which was conducted by the agency, revealed that the products contain sulfoaildenafil, which similar in structure to Sildenafil.

Sildenafil is an active ingredient of an FDA-approved drug for male Erectile Dysfunction (ED), making these products unapproved drugs. The active drug ingredient is not listed on the product label.

The undeclared ingredient may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs such as nitroglycerin and may lower blood pressure to dangerous levels. Consumers with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease often take nitrates.

The recalled products listed below were distributed in black plastic bottles to distributors and via Internet sales:

• Ejaculoid XXTREME: 30 Capsules/Bottle; Lot 79935 12/12; UPC 8 04879 17868 2

• Stimuloid II: 30 Capsules/Bottle; Lot 79936 12-12; UPC 8 04879 17867 5

To date, no illnesses have been reported to the company to date in connection with these products.

Customers who have any of the above products in their possession should stop using them immediately and contact their physician if they have experienced any problems that may be related to taking these products.

Consumers and healthcare professionals should report any adverse events that may be related to the use of the above products to the FDA’s Med Watch Adverse Event Reporting Program: Online at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm; by telephone, toll-free, at 1-800-FDA-1088; or by returning the postage-paid FDA form 3500 which may be downloaded from www.fda.gov/MedWatch/getforms.htm and can be mailed to FDA Med Watch, HF-2, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787 or faxed to 1-800-FDA-0178.

Nutraloid Labs Inc. is conducting this recall with the knowledge of the FDA. Consumers should return any unused product to the place of purchase or contact Nutraloid Labs Inc. directly at 1-772-291-7510, Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

In the event you are harmed by a defective product such as a dietary supplement contact a defective product attorney ASAP is essential. In many states you have less time to file a defective product lawsuits as opposed to a car accident lawsuit.

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The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation holds a hearing Thursday in Boise on whether and where to centralize the lawsuits for key pretrial rulings. Idaho is the next scheduled stop for the roving seven-judge panel.

Gulf Coast residents and businesses are suing for severe economic losses. Many want the lawsuits centralized in New Orleans, closest to the disaster.

BP and other companies involved in the spill favor oil-friendly Houston. Courts in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are also being suggested.

If you have been physically and/or financially struck by the BP oil spill you shouldn’t hesitate to pursue a claim against BP. Contact a personal injury lawyer near you for a free consultation to learn everything.

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The massive recall involves About 1.3 million (1,160,000 Roman Shades and 115,000 Roller Shades) distributed by Smith+Noble, of Corona, California. The recall was prompted following a report of the near strangulation of a child. CPSC and Smith+Noble have received a report of a five-year-old boy in Tacoma, Washington who became entangled in an unsecured continuous loop bead cord on a roller shade in May 2009. No medical treatment was required.

Strangulations can occur when a child places his/her neck between the exposed inner cord and the fabric on the backside of the Roman Shade or when a child pulls the cord out and wraps it around his/her neck. Strangulation can also occur if the Roller Blinds continuous loop cord is not attached to the wall with the tension device provided and a child’s neck becomes entangled in the freestanding loop.

This recall involves all roller shades that do not have a tension device attached to the continuous loop cord and all custom, made-to-order Roman shades. Brand names include Smith+Noble, Christopher Lowell by Smith+Noble, Jessitt Gold, Shop Blinds and Window Elements. The recalled Roman Shades and Roller Blinds were manufactured in China, Mexico, and the United States and were sold exclusively at Smith+Noble online at www.smithandnoble.com and through catalog sales nationwide from 1998 through April 2010 for between $100 and $1,600, depending on custom size and options.

The CPSC is advising consumer to immediately stop using the Roman shades and contact the Window Covering Safety Council (WCSC) for a free repair kit, toll-free, at (800) 506-4636 anytime or visit www.windowcoverings.org. Consumers should check the roller shades to make sure the tension device provided is attached to the continuous loop cord and installed into the wall. If not attached, consumers should attach the tension device securely to the wall. If they no longer have the tension device, consumers should immediately stop using the roller shades and contact WCSC to receive a free replacement tension device.

Smith+Noble can be reached toll-free at (877) 228-7683 between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday and between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Saturday and Sunday, or at the firm’s website at www.smithandnoble.com/productrecallinformation

The CPSC is also asking consumers to examine all shades and blinds in their homes to ensure that there are no accessible cords on the front, side, or back of the product. CPSC recommends the use of cordless window coverings in all homes where children live or visit.

We have long been writing about the dangers and countless recalls associated with Roman Blinds and Roll-Up Shades and recently wrote that the CPSC, Health Canada (HC), and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) joined together to call for strong and comprehensive international safety standards on window coverings from manufacturers and standards organizations.

Corded window coverings cause strangulation deaths and significant injuries in children worldwide. In the United States, CPSC staff is aware of 120 fatalities and 113 non-fatal incidents related to corded window coverings since 1999. Health Canada has received reports of 28 strangulation deaths and 23 near-strangulations linked to corded window coverings since 1986. In seven Member States of Europe, 90 children were reported to have visited hospital emergency departments for injuries caused by corded window coverings in 2002. More recently, at least six children in Europe have died from corded window coverings since 2008. Since December 2009, CPSC has recalled tens of millions of corded Roman shades and roll-up blinds sold by a variety of manufacturers and retailers.

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California Highway Patrol Officer Michelle Sigmond says the bus driver swerved to avoid another crash and slammed into the center divider and a tree at about 2:14 a.m. Thursday just outside downtown Fresno.

She says five people are dead inside the demolished bus. Early reports say there are multiple injuries, but Sigmond doesn’t know how many.

The bus departed Los Angeles late Wednesday and stopped in Fresno before continuing on its route to Sacramento.

Northbound lanes of Highway 99, a major route through the San Joaquin Valley, have been closed since the crash.

If you have been injured in a California bus accident, you should consider consulting with a personal injury lawyer. A California bus accident injury lawyer will know right away if you have a claim worth perusing and unless a settlement is reached you won’t have to pay anything. Commonly a personal injury lawyer takes 33.33% of the final settlement. Visit the California lawyer directory.

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Such cases are tragic, but they are not rare. Florida, with its roads, beaches, and large population of residents and tourists, has seen more than its share.

The Miami wrongful death attorneys at Grossman Roth, P.A., for example, have developed a reputation—and track record—for successfully handling such lawsuits, bringing a measure of relief and justice to families devastated by needless tragedy. In late May, for example, the firm obtained a nearly $1.5 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a woman who drowned in Miami Beach.

In the Bronowicz case, lawyers for the victim’s family say the cause of her January 2009 death is clear: the negligence of workers at the New Horizons of the Treasure Coast residential treatment center located in Fort Pierce, in south Florida. Bronowicz, 59, was being treated for depression there but was set to be released.

Less than two weeks before her release date, however, Bronowicz was found drowned at the facility. Her daughter, Renee Hill, later learned that her mother had been locked alone in a bathroom for 45 minutes.

“We all know that life has tragedies, but if it was a preventable tragedy, then we have to find answers,” says attorney Laurence Huttman, who is representing Hill in her wrongful death lawsuit against New Horizons. The suit contends that workers were negligent in leaving Bronowicz alone in the bathroom for so long, given her condition.

Huttman says that in the days before her death, Bronowicz had become increasingly disturbed, and on one occasion she lay on the floor for nearly four hours, crying and asking for help.

“This was a preventable tragedy,” says the Florida attorney.

While the wrongful death case may provide the answers—and responsibility—Hill seeks, victory in the courtroom, she knows, will be bittersweet: “I don’t think there are words to describe that kind of pain,” says Hill, who visited her mother regularly. “To lose your best friend, your mother . . . I’m still at a loss for words.”

This news story was brought to you by the Miami wrongful death attorneys at Grossman Roth, P.A. For three decades, we’ve been fighting for—and coming through for—those needlessly injured by the negligence of others. Along the way, we’ve become one of south Florida’s pre-eminent firms for wrongful death lawsuits and personal injury claims, helping clients obtain the recovery—and answers—they deserve.

Looking for a Florida Attorney?

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According to the study’s lead author, childhood cancer is considered rare and the increase seen is small to moderate, potentially linked to the infertility, said WebMD. “There is an increased risk for cancer in children born via IVF, but it’s rather small,” researcher Bengt Kallen, MD, PhD, a retired professor of embryology and head of the Tornblad Institute, University of Lund, Lund, Germany, told WebMD. “The estimate that we give is that the risk increases 40 percent, but the estimate has, of course, a degree of uncertainty,” Dr. Kallen added. The study appears in the journal Pediatrics.

The team researched 26,692 Swedish children born via IVF from 1982 to 2005, using the Swedish Cancer Registry, said WebMD. The group compared the IVF children who had cancer versus those conceived naturally, noted WebMD, which added that the emerging study compliments information from a prior study by the same team, which looked at some 17,000 children. The prior study showed the same results; however, the emerging study indicates a stronger link.

After accounting for a series of variables—maternal age, pregnancy instances, miscarriages, body mass index—53 cases of cancer were seen in the IVF children, an increase over the 38 that would have been statistically probable in the general population, said WebMD. Cancers included leukemia and cancers of the central nervous system and eye, as well as other solid tumors and Langerhans histiocytosis, a condition in which the body experiences an excess of a specific white blood cell, wrote WebMD. While experts disagree on this condition being a cancer, when the incidences of this condition—six cases—were removed, there still existed an increased risk of 34 percent, added WebMD.

IVF babies were 1.4 times—40 percent—likelier to experience cancer in the follow-up period, which ended in 2006, said WebMD.

Last month we wrote that the risk of birth defects seems to be twice as high in babies conceived via fertility treatment, versus babies conceived naturally, according to French scientists. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment includes a variety of infertility treatment methods such as vitro fertilization (IVF) in which an egg is fertilized by sperm in a lab, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

Earlier this year we wrote, citing Reuters, that women who undergo IVF or ICSI and who become pregnant, experience an increased risk of giving birth to a stillborn baby, according to Danish scientists. In 2008, we wrote that Chinese researchers reported that the use of IVF or ICSI to conceive appears to increase the odds of Y-chromosome defects or “microdeletions” in male offspring, meaning that chromosomal defects, or deletions, could result in defective sperm production and possibly hypospadias, a congenital malformation of the male sex organs in which the urinary outlet, or urethra, does not open through the glans of the penis, but develops on the penis’ underside.

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Last year, the World Health Organization classified indoor tanning as a definite cause of cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be more than 68,000 cases of melanoma this year, more than 8,000 of them fatal.

New York law bans commercial indoor tanning for children under 14 and requires parental consent for those from 14 to 18.

The state Health Department plans this fall to begin tighter enforcement of current laws regulating tanning businesses.

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The recalled Baja Motorsports Mini Bikes and Go-Carts, which were manufactured in China, were imported by Baja Inc., which is also doing business as (d/b/a) Baja Motorsports, of Phoenix, Arizona.

The gas cap can leak or detach from the fuel tank on the recalled mini bikes and go-carts, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. In addition, the throttle can stick due to an improperly positioned fuel line and throttle cable, posing a sudden acceleration hazard to consumers. To date, the firm has received at least nine reports of the gas caps leaking and detaching, including one report of a serious burn injury to a child. The firm has also received 25 reports of stuck throttles possibly due to the fuel line and throttle cable being improperly attached with injuries to the face and other parts of the body reported.

This recall involved Baja Motorsports mini bikes with model numbers beginning with HT65, MB165, WR65, MB196, DB30, WR90, and DR90 and go-carts with model numbers BB65, SD65, DN65, and TR65. The model number is located on the mini bikes’ fenders and/or decorative fuel tank and on the go-carts’ roll cage. They both have black plastic gas caps.

The recalled Baja Motorsports Mini Bikes and Go-Carts were sold at various mini bike and go-cart retailers nationwide from November 2004 through June, 2010 for between $200 and $2000. They were also available from the following web sites: Costco.com, Amazon.com, toysrus.com, northerntool.com, sears.com, and kmart.com.

The CPSC is advising consumers to immediately stop using the recalled mini bikes and go-carts and contact Baja Motorsports for a free replacement gas cap and to schedule a free repair of the fuel line and throttle cable. Baja Motorsports can be reached toll-free at (888) 863-2252 between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday or at the firm’s website at www.bajamotorsports.net.

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Autopsies on the elderly couple - he was 90, she was 89 - on Thursday pointed to a tragic end to lives they shared for more than 60 years. Police estimated they had been dead at least four days before a newspaper carrier called 911 out of concern that papers had piled up by their garage.

Investigators were trying to determine what turned an elevator into a death trap inside the Wadsworths’ three-story home overlooking Georgia’s coastal marshes. Stunned family members, meanwhile, looked for a shred of solace.

“We always said we hoped they would go together because if one went, the other wouldn’t survive long,” the couple’s son, Wesley Wadsworth of Blue Bell, Penn., said Thursday. “They were so dependent on each other.”

The newspaper carrier called police Wednesday after noticing the unopened editions going back to July 9, as well as an untouched watermelon a neighbor had left at the couple’s door the day before.

Police had to break into the house because the doors were locked and bolted. Inside they found no one but the Wadsworths’ cat. Then they noticed the elevator - accessed by what looked like closet doors with up-and-down arrow buttons in the walls. Once the shaft was open, they found the elevator stuck between the home’s second and third floor.

Police discovered the Wadsworths’ bodies lying in a fetal position, facing each other, Glynn County coroner Jimmy Durden said Thursday. Autopsies concluded both died from heat exhaustion. Durden estimated temperatures in the elevator reached 95 degrees.

There was no phone in the elevator, leaving the couple unable to call for help, said Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering.

“It’s just tragic,” Doering said. “We all know one day we’re going to die. This is one of those horrible ones where you’re stuck somewhere.”

Though they were from Pennsylvania, the Wadsworths had been vacationing on the Georgia coast most of their lives. They’d met while attending Ursinus College in the 1940s, not long before Sherwood Wadsworth went overseas to fight in World War II as a bomber pilot.

Caroline Wadsworth was the daughter of prosperous car dealer. When her husband returned from the war, their son said, he started two dealerships of his own in the Philadelphia area before retiring to the Georgia coast in the early 1980s.

They stayed as active as their health would allow. Until he needed a cane, Sherwood would walk three miles on the beach every day. Twice a week, they’d head to a resort on neighboring Sea Island for cocktails and dancing to big band music.

“My father-in-law dressed in a dinner jacket or tux, and my mother-in-law always wore a long dress - dressed to the nines,” said Maureen Wadsworth, their son’s wife. “They were great people, fun people.”

As the years passed and age took hold, the couple went out less often. But they maintained their independence and took care of each other.

Sherwood, known as Waddy to his friends, would get up every morning to fetch the newspaper and make breakfast for his wife. He’d send it up to her in the elevator so she could eat in bed and work on the crossword puzzle, his son said.

Likewise, whenever the couple ventured out, Caroline would wrap an arm around her husband’s for extra support as he walked with his cane.

“My mother-in-law’s arm was always slipped in his,” Maureen Wadsworth said. “They always walked hand-in-hand.”

In the past week, neighbor Phoebe Hoaster had a growing sense that something wasn’t quite right. She noticed newspapers gathering outside the couple’s garage when she left a watermelon at their door Tuesday before the couple was found.

Hoaster, who lives next door to the Wadsworths’ house along a narrow private with marsh grasses growing on one side, says she also noticed Sherwood didn’t take out the trash on Sunday as he normally did. That didn’t seem too unusual, she says, considering the sweltering July weather.

“I thought, ‘Well, it’s hot and maybe they’re just not getting out,” she said.

Doering, the police chief, said it’s still unclear precisely when the Wadsworths became trapped in the elevator. And the autopsies were unable to determine exactly how long the couple had been dead. But Doering said investigators are confident the couple died at least four days before their bodies were found.

Inspectors at Georgia’s Department of Labor are also investigating to determine whether the elevator was licensed when it was installed, department spokesman Sam Hall said. The probe could take several weeks.

Annual inspections aren’t required for elevators in private homes, unlike those in public or commercial buildings. Hall didn’t have technical details about the couple’s elevator, but said all elevators in Georgia are required to have a landline phone so users can call for help.

“It’s the responsibility of the owner of the elevator to make sure the maintenance is done properly,” Hall said.

Wesley Wadsworth, who last visited his parents to celebrate his father’s 90th birthday in February, said they had complained of mechanical problems with the elevator in April and May.

Still, no one suspected the device that had seemed such a boon to his parents in their old age would become a death trap.

“We were prepared for them to die,” the couple’s son said. “But not that way.”

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