Current Events

Dietary supplements send at least 23,000 Americans a year to the emergency room and cause at least 2,000 to be hospitalized, according to a study published online Wednesday.

The true number of ER visits caused by dietary supplements – which include vitamins, minerals, herbs and other products – could be much larger than the study's estimates because many patients don't mention their supplement use when visiting the doctor, according to the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

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The "herbal Viagra" former basketball star Lamar Odom was said to have taken before he was found unresponsive at a brothel Tuesday afternoon has drawn ire from health experts for years.

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Women who sought permanent sterilization through a contraceptive implant called Essure were 10 times as more likely to be back for surgery within a year than women who had their tubes tied, according to a new study of 52,326 women sterilized in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers in New York State from 2005 to 2013.

The findings add to growing concerns about the device, which has been on the market for over a decade. Thousands of women who claim they have been hurt by it have urged the Food and Drug Administration to warn the public about potential complications and pull the device from the market.

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MILWAUKEE — A jury late Tuesday awarded more than $5 million in damages to two police officers who were severely wounded with a pistol that a local gun shop sold to a straw buyer in 2009.

Deliberating only nine hours after a two-week trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, the jury of eight women and four men decided the unusual lawsuit here in favor of the plaintiffs. Gun-control advocates hoped the verdict would encourage more victims and lawyers to sue what they say is a small minority of gun stores that make questionable sales.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Delaware judge on Friday said Boston Scientific should only have to pay $10 million to a woman originally awarded $100 million by a jury who found she was injured by transvaginal mesh, a device that is the subject of thousands of lawsuits.

Judge Mary Johnston in New Castle County, Delaware, said that the damages awarded to plaintiff Deborah Barba in May – the largest ever in a trial involving transvaginal mesh - were “grossly disproportionate to the injuries suffered and shock the court’s conscience and sense of justice.”

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HALTERN AM SEE, Germany — Weeks before he was supposed to fly to Barcelona, Spain, for a student exchange program with his 10th-grade Spanish class, Steffen Strang realized that he would miss a home game of the soccer team he followed religiously. Maybe, he told his mother, he should stay home.

The response Dagmar Strang gave to her 16-year-old son has echoed in her head since March 24, the day he was supposed to have returned on a Germanwings flight bound for Düsseldorf.

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Even as Volkswagen struggles to deal with its diesel emissions scandal, new data raise questions about whether the automaker has properly reported death and injury claims to U.S. regulators over the past decade.

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California owners of Volkswagen diesel cars caught up in the emissions-test rigging scandal might have a shot at getting the German automaker to buy back the vehicles.

A Seattle law firm filed a class action lawsuit against Volkswagen in Los Angeles federal court Monday demanding an immediate buyback under California emissions laws.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans buying new cars these days are baffled by a torrent of new safety technology.

Some features will automatically turn a car back into its lane if it begins to drift, or hit the brakes if sensors detect that it's about to rear-end someone else. There are lane-change and blind-spot monitors, drowsiness alerts and cars that can park themselves. Technologies once limited to high-end models like adaptive cruise control, tire-pressure indicators and rear-view cameras have become more common.

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BP will have 15 years to make payments under the more than $20 billion settlement reached over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a timeline that may have raised a few eyebrows when details of the deal were released Monday (Oct. 5). But experts say the slow payout could benefit Louisiana and other coastal states.

State officials have largely praised the settlement reached between BP, the federal government and five Gulf Coast states in July and formally filed in court Monday. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said the agreement is the fastest way for funds to make their way to areas hit hardest by the oil disaster.

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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday announced a final settlement with the oil giant BP of $20.8 billion for its role in the disastrous 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, raising the total from the initial $18.7 billion settlement announced in July.

At either amount, it is the largest environmental settlement — and the largest civil settlement with any single entity — in the nation’s history.

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