San Francisco Injury Lawyer Blog

Bisphenol A (BPA) is back in the spotlight. Recent testing by Consumer Reports of canned foods found that most of the 19 name-brand foods they tested contained measurable levels of (BPA). BPA has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and is restricted in Canada and some U. S. States and municipalities because it has been linked to a wide range of health effects. It turns out BPA is also used to line the inside of canned goods so the metal does not interact with the food and deteriorate. A different report put out by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, back in May, found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, including baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of BPA, suggesting that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the container’s contents-- enough to be measured in urine. The results also showed that the participants’ urinary BPA concentrations increased 69% after drinking from the polycarbonate bottles.
Federal guidelines currently put the daily limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight---based on experiments done in the 1980’s. But scientific evidence confirms that BPA at lower doses can be dangerous. Environmentcalifornia.org researchers found that BPA at low doses is associated with developmental problems, lower sperm count, breast and prostate cancers, diabetes and obesity, heart disease, Down Syndrome, behavioral changes, and miscarriage. According to a FOX News report, Dr Urvashi Rangan, the director of Technical Policy, at Consumers Union, a nonprofit publisher of Consumer reports, said,” The lack of any safety margin between the levels that cause harm in animals and those that people could potentially ingest from canned foods has been inadequately addressed by the FDA to date.” The good news is that efforts to bring about change are being made. The Consumers Union recently sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, requesting that the agency act this year to ban the use of BPA in food and beverage-content materials. And the FDA is expected to reassess the safety of BPA and issue its findings by the end this month. Currently, bills are pending in Congress that would ban the use PBA in all food and beverage containers. Here at the Brod Law Firm we would like to see a day when the FDA imposes stricter regulations not just on BPA, but on all toxic substances. All of us born under the nuclear and DDT age have been exposed far too long to too many toxins--such as radiation, pesticides, as well as medications and vaccines--that, now, it’s time for a change.

Posted by Gregory J. Brod | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Personal Injury

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Here at the Brod Law Firm, we are big fans of Streetfilms.org, the video segment of the Livable Streets Initiative. Streetfilms produce short on-line videos, covering a range of topics from traffic calming in Paris to Sunday Streets in Bogata, also known as Ciclovia (an event after which San Francisco modeled its Sundaystreets). There is also video posted on Streetsblog that capture street confrontations, such as that between a New York City driver with a serious case of road rage and a pedicab simply trying to make his way through the congested city streets. We find all their videos entertaining and educational, giving us insight, while also keeping us in loop, into how our city compares to other cities in terms of the different ways a city can transform its streets into safe and sustainable places, for both vehicles and non-vehicles, as well as livable, vibrant places for social interaction.
The video on traffic calming in Paris we found especially interesting and inspiring. Some examples of their traffic calming strategies are: curbs are removed so that bikes, pedistrians and cars coexist; on the wider roads, bikes share lanes with buses and taxis; some crosswalks are raised, and cobblestone streets and neckdowns are implemented to slow oncomoing or turning traffic. Street calming is a powerful tool for changing behavior and improving safety, as it forces vehicles and cyclists and pedestrians to tolerate each other. And it is not just Paris, other cities, like Copenhagen, Demark, have been implemented extensive traffic calming techniques. Some cities go further to promote non-vehicle transportation, such as Curitiba, Brazil, where, on Rua XV de Novembro (15th of November Street), all vehicle traffic is blocked and only pedestrians are allowed.
Whenever we take on a new case where a cyclist or pedestrian has been injured by a vehicle, we are reminded that these accidents only reinforce San Francisco’s need for street transformation and street calming. In order for San Francisco to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy and its status as a world class city, it must implement, through education and marketing, strategies that place people over cars and reduce the convenience of driving a car. Advertising campaigns that show the burdens of owning a car in the city often outweigh the benefits can be an effective impetus for change. And we need not look to cities overseas for inspiration; cities here in the U.S., like Portland and Cincinnati, have done an excellent job developing and implementing techniques for traffic calming. If they can do it, then San Francisco can do it. These traffic calming techniques would not only benefit pedestrians and cyclists here in our beautiful city, they would also benefit the entire planet by reducing green house gas emissions.

Posted by Gregory J. Brod | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Bicycle Accidents , Bus Accidents , Pedestrian Accidents , Personal Injury

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Between 1946 and 1964, 78 million babies were born in the U.S., creating a surge in population and a demographic bulge not seen before in the U.S. The babies of that generation, known as the baby boomer generation, grew up with rebellious and idealistic attitudes that promised to reshape society and the world. Boomers are expected to live longer than previous generations. By 2030, 20% of Americans will be over 65 and more than 35% will be over 50. Men are expected to live 22 years longer that previous generations, and women are expected to live 25 years longer. Now, as many of the first baby boomers are moving through their 60’s, one question remains: will baby boomers move through their next phase of life with health and vitality, or will they carry it out with the pain and disability associated with degenerative and chronic diseases? Evidence shows that many boomers are healthier both physically and mentally than their parents and are aging more slowly due to better eating habits and more exercise (just drive through Marin on sunny Saturday or Sunday and you will likely see many boomers on race bikes zip past you while you are sitting in traffic). But another scenario is that boomers could place a tremendous demand and burden on medicare, professional care givers, and family members if they become frail and dependent.

Whether at home or nursing home or care facility, potentially all aging persons will be exposed to some sort of abuse or neglect. Often, abuse and neglect of an elder in a nursing home or other type of care facility is profit driven. Even hospice care facilities have the same financial pressures as other elder care facilities and may sometimes neglect to offer a care rather than pay for expensive treatments related to a terminal diagnosis. Caregiver stress is also a risk factor for abuse and neglect. Family members who are thrown into the demands of daily care of an elder can feel frustration and anger. Professionally trained caregivers can experience the same intense frustration and anger as a family member who is not appropriately trained and may use physical force or neglect an elder person as a way of dealing with the situation that they feel they can’t manage.

Sometimes elders are subjected to a different kind of abuse, a malicious type of abuse known as financial abuse and it can range from scams created by salespeople, such as salespeople from drug companies, to misuse of elders funds by a care facility or family member. Financial abuse or exploitation includes taking money under false pretenses or denying an elderly person what is theirs either forced or without the older person’s knowledge. When this happens, it usually goes undiscovered until someone who cares about the older notices an unexplainable bill or funds missing from that persons account. Financial abuse is pervasive in the lives of the elderly because it can go on for long periods undetected or without ever being discovered. A person can die not knowing they were exploited for a profit or cheated by someone they trusted or loved. Here at the Brod Law Firm, we have a seen these kinds of cases first hand and have the experience and knowledge needed to help an abused elderly person or the family of an abused person.

Posted by Gregory J. Brod | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Personal Injury

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