Illinois Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Trump’s Massive EPA Budget Cuts Give the ‘OK’ to Pillaging the Environment

March 16, 2017 | Shawn Collins

More than perhaps anything else he does, a president’s budget proposal tells us what he thinks is important.

By that measure, President Trump’s just proposed massive budget cuts for the EPA tell us that Trump does not value the EPA mission of ensuring clean air and water for Americans, and in fact that he believes we have been too harsh on the corporate polluters whose behavior deprives us of those things. Stated bluntly, the President is trying to disband the environmental police. Polluters should be licking their chops.

It is impossible to reach any other conclusion when we review what Trump proposes to do to the EPA’s funding:

Why Pollution Victims Need to be Able to File Class Action Lawsuits

March 15, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Pro-business forces in Congress have proposed laws aimed at restricting, or even eliminating, the rights of injured Americans to join together in bringing their claims in the form of a single “class action” lawsuit. A class action is a kind of lawsuit in which those who have been injured by the same corporate conduct can bring their legal claims as part of a single case, rather than having to file dozens or hundreds or even thousands of essentially identical individual cases. Common examples of a class action include:

When a corporation has misrepresented its financial health, causing investors to pay more for the corporation’s stock than it is actually worth, only to learn later through an unexpected stock price drop that they had not been told the truth.
When a car company has sold automobiles with a common defect–say, a malfunctioning air bag-with the result that car purchasers did not get the car they paid for, and in fact unknowingly got a dangerous car.

What is Glyphosate and How is it Used?

March 15, 2017 | Shawn Collins

If many of us went to our garages or sheds, we would find “Roundup,” a popular lawn and garden weed killer sold by Monsanto. Since its commercial introduction in 1974, Roundup has become the most widely used weed killer in the United States, and possibly the world. In fact, Roundup is used in more than 160 countries internationally, with more than 1.4 billion pounds being applied to lawns and farms across the world annually.

The main ingredient in Roundup is an herbicide called “glyphosate.” Once glyphosate is applied to a plant, it prevents the plant from making certain proteins that are necessary for its continued growth. In order to allow for large-scale use of glyphosate on farms, crops have been genetically modified to be resistant to this herbicide.

After the introduction of genetically modified crops in the 1990s, the use of glyphosate increased fifteen-fold across the United States. Glyphosate use continues to increase each year across the United States. Specifically, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, North Dakota, and southern Minnesota have some of the highest glyphosate usage in the United States.

What are the Health Effects of Glyphosate?

March 15, 2017 | Ed Manzke

In March 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) gathered seventeen of the world’s top cancer researchers to evaluate glyphosate, a primary component of the popular weed-killer, Roundup. The seventeen member workgroup was led by Dr. Aaron Blair, a recently retired epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Over a year-long period, the workgroup reviewed nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed and published scientific studies. Based on the results of these studies, IARC unanimously classified glyphosate as a Group 2A chemical, “probably carcinogenic to humans.” This categorization is given when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Of the nearly 1,000 chemicals reviewed by IARC to determine the carcinogenic effect, fewer than 100 have received this designation.

The studies reviewed by IARC discussed glyphosate exposure and its connection to various serious health effects. They linked glyphosate exposure to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, various other types of cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and chronic respiratory illness. Studies further supported a connection between glyphosate exposure and attention deficit disorder, autism, birth defects and reproductive issues, even infertility.

Antidepressants Causing Birth Defects

March 13, 2017 | John Risvold

One out of ten Americans are taking antidepressants such as Prozac and Paxil. This large portion of Americans includes women who are pregnant and suffer from depression. In many cases, these mothers-to-be have to choose between treating their depression and risking dangerous birth defects in their children. Taking antidepressants during gestation increases the risks that the baby will be born with a serious birth defect.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control found that women taking Paxil during their first trimester of pregnancy more than doubled their risk of five types of serious birth defects, while those taking Prozac had a higher risk of two serious birth defects.

Some of the most common birth defect risks and medical problems associated with Paxil include:

“The Arsonist is Now in Charge of the Fire Department” Scott Pruitt is Prepared to Ruin the Environment Because Big Oil Told Him To

March 10, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Two things that Scott Pruitt just said prove that he is so deep into the pocket of big oil company polluters that he can’t find his way out. He’s not fit to head the EPA.

Here’s what Pruitt said:

(1) “I think people across this country look at the EPA much as they look at the IRS.” That’s what he recently told the Conservative Political Action Conference. But he’s dead wrong. Here’s the truth: It’s not the “people across this country” who look at the EPA like it’s the IRS. It’s polluters who look at the EPA like it’s the IRS. Because the EPA has the power to make them stop polluting, to clean up the pollution they cause, and to protect the American people against pollution. This can cost the polluters a huge amount of money. Polluters fear the EPA because of this power. Polluters hate the EPA because of this power. But “people across the country” don’t fear or hate the EPA. They think of the EPA as the cavalry, riding in to protect them when some polluter has ruined their environment. They know they don’t have the political or financial power to stop polluters-especially the biggest and worst ones, like the big oil companies. So, they think of the EPA as someone who will stop polluters for them, as the people’s protector (even if the EPA doesn’t always merit this respect). I know this because, during my 17 + years of representing literally thousands of families whose air, water, or soil has been contaminated by reckless polluters, that’s what they tell me. That’s what they think of the EPA. That’s what they want and expect the EPA to be. Nothing remotely like the IRS.

Environmental Contamination Threatening Your Home? 10 Important Questions to Ask

March 8, 2017 | Shawn Collins

I’ve been doing environmental contamination cases for about 20 years now, and have talked to hundreds of families who have gotten the bad news that there is a dangerous chemical in their water, air, or yard. What I have learned over the process of talking to these people and being their lawyer in court, is that there are a series of questions that families need to get answers to in order to make good decisions to protect their home and family. Those 10 critical questions are:

1) What is the chemical contaminating my home and how dangerous is it? Depending on the kind of chemical, the dangers can be very extreme or very minimal. For example, there is a family of chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including TCE and PCE, that have been studied for years and whose dangers are fairly well known. Others are not so well known. You need to insist on being told what specific chemicals are involved because then you can start getting answers to the question: how dangerous is it? This is especially important if you have children. Recent studies have shown that many of these chemicals are more dangerous to children because their immune systems are not fully formed, and they don’t process toxins as efficiently as adults. If you are dealing with one of these chemicals, it’s very important that you know because that drives what kind of protection you will need to insist on for your family.

2) How long has my family been exposed to this toxic chemical? Why do you need to know this? Because for most of these chemicals, the longer the exposure the greater the danger, especially for children. Many of these chemicals are odorless and tasteless, and you would never know you are being exposed to them. You need someone to tell you how long the chemical has been in your home because that lets you know how concerned you should be about health issues.

How Contaminated Groundwater Can Turn Into Vapor Intrusion: Is Your Neighborhood at Risk?

March 7, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Around the country, communities are beginning to understand that sites contaminated with toxic industrial chemicals pose another danger to surrounding neighborhoods: vapor intrusion. Families who had contaminated groundwater in their neighborhood–and believed that the problem was taken care of after being connected to clean water–are now being told that the air in their homes might be contaminated by vapor coming from the contaminated groundwater.

It can be a real problem for families living close to Superfund or contaminated sites that were never completely remediated. Many times the original contamination was never cleaned up–especially if it was not considered a serious problem either because neighbors had a different source of water to begin with or had been switched to a safe water supply–and the chemicals were allowed to keep contaminating the groundwater. Those chemicals in the groundwater may now be turning into gases and threatening homes with vapor.

There are several ways that toxic vapor can intrude into the air inside homes and threaten the families who live there. But how does that happen? Here are nine elements that are present in typical vapor intrusion scenarios:

Study Shows Long Term Effects in Children from All Levels of Traumatic Brain Injury

March 4, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Your child plays a sport with a high incidence of concussions–like football, soccer or hockey–and he or she has had a concussion in that sport. Should you be worried? Maybe, according to a recent study by physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians.

The study found that youth patients with mild to moderate brain injuries are two times more likely to develop attention problems; patients with severe injuries are five times more likely to develop ADHD. However, there is a sliver of good news. The researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital have also discovered that the family environment plays a role in whether and how these problems develop. More specifically:

The home environment and good parenting can make a difference in recovery. Children in supportive environments show fewer effects than children from chaotic or disadvantaged homes.

Is Miralax Safe for Your Child?

March 2, 2017 | Shawn Collins

If you are a parent who has been giving Miralax to your child thinking that it is a safe way to help with constipation, you may want to wait until the investigation of Miralax at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is finished.

According to Philly Voice, the Children’s Hospital has been given an FDA grant to study parent reports of disturbing and scary side effects possibly caused by this over the counter medication. 1 This is in response to 167 reports of adverse side effects-including neurological and psychiatric events–in children who took Miralax, received by the FDA before 2012. Moreover, the ABC 6 Action News team found more than 5 times that many adverse reports in the FDA’s records up through 2016. Those documents show that the families of 950 children have reported adverse events to the FDA after their child took Miralax, ranging from mouth ulcers to suicidal thoughts, mood swings, aggression, and seizures. 2

None of this should come as a surprise to the FDA, which added Miralax to its Adverse Event Reporting System in connection with “neuropsychiatric events” such as autism, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, back in 2011. 3