Mesothelioma Asbestos Lawfirms

A new study financed by a section of the National Institutes of Health has made the first potential connection to an individual’s genetics and susceptibility to eventually developing deadly asbestos illnesses such as mesothelioma.

The study, which was recently published online in Nature Genetics, found evidence that people with BAP1 gene mutations may have an increased chance of developing multiple cancer types such as mesothelioma, breast, ovarian, pancreatic and renal cancers. The study highlighted two U.S. families with members who have the BAP1 gene mutation. Both families also have “a high incidence of mesothelioma.”

Dr. Joseph R. Testa, another study co-leader and the Carol and Kenneth E. Weg chairman in Human Genetics at Fox Chase Cancer Center, said the study was the first to “demonstrate that individual genetic makeup can greatly influence susceptibility to mesothelioma.”

While only a first step, the discoveries noted in this study could one day lead to fundamental progress in mesothelioma care. Thanks to Drs. Carbone and Testa and their crew for the hard work. We hope this is just the beginning of bigger breakthroughs to come.

Living with the day-to-day hardships of mesothelioma – whether it is you or a loved one who has been diagnosed with the illness – is both emotionally and financially taxing. If you feel that a company or former employer may be responsible for the asbestos exposure that led to an illness, contact a mesothelioma attorney to learn about filing amesothelioma lawsuit.

Mesothelioma

Medical liability cases against obstetricians and other doctors who participate in the birthing process are most often spurred by errors in clinical judgment, miscommunication between doctors, and technical mistakes.

All of these errors can potentially result in a birth injury occurring that may remain with the newborn child for their entire lives.

According to a study released this month by CRIGO Strategies that analyzed more than 800 OB medical liability cases filed between 2005 and 2009, the three most common allegations in the lawsuits were as follows: Delayed treatment of fetal distress, improper execution of vaginal delivery, and improper management of pregnancy.

“Obstetrics has some unique vulnerabilities, most often involving situations in which a sequence of errors or oversights cascade into a crisis that can put mother and baby in jeopardy,” said Robert Hanscom, CRIGO’s senior vice president.

Obstetrician errors can result in a number of birth injuries that can affect the mother and/or the child being born. Among the more serious birth injuries a newborn can suffer from is cerebral palsy, which can affect a newborn for the rest of his or her life and often relegate them to a wheelchair and constant medical care.

If you or your child was born with a birth injury that can be attributed to medical error, such as cerebral palsy, there may be legal options available to you. Contact a birth injury attorney at Sokolove Law today to learn about your options regarding a lawsuit against the doctors who caused your injury.

Birth Injury

Aside from legal ads on TV, many Americans don’t know what asbestos is or where it can be found, let alone that exposure to this dangerous material can result in the development of an asbestos-related cancer such as mesothelioma. In fact, mesothelioma occurs in such a small number of patients – it’s estimated that only 2,500-3,000 new patients are diagnosed every year – that the disease is often referred to as an orphan disease. And while new mesothelioma treatments can alleviate symptoms and improve a patient’s quality of life, to date there is no proven cure for the disease.

Perhaps most troubling is the fact that despite these known health risks, asbestos is still not banned in the United States and is manufactured and used every day.

But you can help change this. There are a number of easy ways for you to join the fight to ban asbestos and beat mesothelioma forever, and it all begins with one simple goal: raising awareness.

Each year, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF) recognizes September 26 as National Mesothelioma Awareness Day in order to educate the public about the dangers of asbestos exposure and raise much-needed financial support for research towards improved treatments of the disease. The first Mesothelioma Awareness Day was started in 2004 by a group of volunteers and every year since has been larger and more widespread.

Want to participate, but don’t know where to start? Here are some ideas:

• Write a letter to Congress urging them to ban asbestos. We have a pre-written letter on our homepage you can sign and send digitally in minutes. (Yes, your representatives really receive them and sometimes they’ll even write you back!)
• Spread the word! You can click the Facebook and Twitter buttons on the top or bottom of this page to easily share the news about Mesothelioma Awareness Day with your friends.
• Join MARF’s social media campaign. They have ready-to-use facts and updates for you to share online.
• Plan or attend a fundraising event. You can check MARF’s event calendar to see if there’s anything planned in your area, and if there isn’t, they have otherideas how you can become involved – both on 9/26, as well as throughout the year.
• Make a donation to a non-profit organization like MARF or the Asbestos Disease Organization (ADAO).
• Check out the Mesothelioma Resource Center’s list of ways to raisemesothelioma awareness, which include contacting local news outlets, meeting local government leaders, fundraising and more.

Whether it’s the click of a mouse or a dollar in a donation jar, you CAN make a difference on National Mesothelioma Awareness Day. By raising awareness, we can save lives through safety education and prevention, as well as gaining support for the movements to ban asbestos and secure additional funding for improved treatments.

So take action and spread the word! Together, we can ban asbestos and beat asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma

With Mesothelioma Awareness Day coming up on Monday, September 26th, we thought it apt to highlight the top ten products we were surprised to find that are still being manufactured today with the use of the known carcinogen, asbestos. Asbestos exposure has long been known to cause mesothelioma as well as other cancers and diseases. Mesothelioma Awareness Day is an annual day devoted to raising awareness about mesothelioma and raising funds for mesothelioma research.

In this post — the first in a series of Mesothelioma Awareness Day posts designed to help raise awareness – we present our top ten asbestos-containing products to be aware of:

Baby powder? Baby powder!

Baby powder and other adult cosmetic powders and talcum powders often contain talc. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies talc that contains asbestos as “carcinogenic to humans” and talc not containing asbestos as “not classifiable as to carcinogenicity in humans.

2. Cigarette Filters

As if smoking cigarettes wasn’t already bad enough, asbestos has been known to be present in the filters.

3. Hair Dryers

Check with the manufacturer of your specific model, as some hair dryers have asbestos-based insulators.

4. Mittens

Are your hands really that cold? Some fire or heat-proof mittens have linings that contain asbestos.

5. Yarn

Typically, you don’t have to worry about the yarn you’re using to knit a scarf, unless it’s known to contain heat-proof threads, which contain asbestos.

6. Popcorn Poppers

As with hair dryers, most small electronics and appliances manufacturers have discontinued the use of asbestos. If yours is an older model or if you have concerns, contact the manufacturer.

7. Brake Pads

Many automotive parts are still manufactured with asbestos today, especially brake pads, to help prevent overheating.

8. Cork Board

If you have an old cork board and you can’t verify its safety with a manufacturer, think twice before tacking up your next picture or note.

9. Duct Tape

Many electrical tapes contain asbestos to help prevent melting or catching fire.

10. Rope

Although many ropes are asbestos-free, some that are heat or fire resistant do contain asbestos.

When asbestos fibers are inhalable, they are breathed into the lungs where the microscopic fibers embed into the tissue and accumulate. The inhalation of asbestos fibers is the leading cause of mesothelioma.

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For those who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer that can be linked to asbestos exposure caused by a product or former employer, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Contact an experienced mesothelioma attorney to learn more about your rights, and to see if pursuing a mesothelioma settlement is in your best interest.

Asbestos

California Mesothelioma Attorney : Mesothelioma has a very long latency period (the time from the initial asbestos exposure to the development of cancer), making it doubly treacherous. This latency period can be anywhere from 25 to 40 years. The length of time it takes patients to report symptoms varies but can range from two weeks to two years, with the average being about two months. As many as 25% of patients with the disease can have symptoms for six months or more before seeking medical attention. Due to its slow onset, the disease tends to affect people between 50 and 70 years of age. It affects men three to five times more often than women and is less common in African Americans than in Caucasians. The right side of the chest is affected more than the left. The right lung is bigger than the left lung, or the right lung is of greater size and volume than the left lung. California Mesothelioma Attorney

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Over half of the patients have chest pain., usually located low in the chest and toward the back and side. The pain has usually increased over time and can be severe enough to require narcotic pain medication. Severe, uncontrolled pain may be a sign of tumor invasion into the chest wall. The chest wall refers to the structures outside the lungs that move as a part of breathing, including the rib cage and diaphragm. Dyspnea (difficulty breathing) is another symptom commonly seen with this disease. This shortness of breath is usually due to fluid that has accumulated in the pleural space (the space between the chest wall and the lung) from the cancer. This fluid accumulation is called a pleural effusion. In 95% of the cases, patients with pleural mesothelioma will have a pleural effusion at some time during the course of the disease. Cough, fever, fatigue, and weight loss will occur in about 30% of cases, and a small minority will have hoarseness or will cough up blood (hemoptysis). In only about 5% will the disease have spread out of the initial area of cancer (metastasis), usually traveling from the pleura spreading to the lungs, which can cause these last symptoms to occur.

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In abdominal or peritoneal mesothelioma, patients most frequently have increased abdominal swelling from fluid that has accumulated in the abdomen (ascites). They may also have pain and weight loss. Pain in the abdomen is usually due to an increase in the amount of solid tumor they have, and not because of fluid. Weight loss can be due to a decreased appetite because of the disease. If you experience shortness of breath, pain in the chest or abdomen, swelling in the abdomen, or any other unusual symptom, see your doctor! The doctor will take a history from you and perform a physical exam. In listening to your chest, the doctor may not hear breath sounds clearly on one side or may hear scratchy sounds in the chest (rub). Or the doctor may notice that your abdomen is swollen. After the examination, the doctor mil link the symptoms you reported to the findings on the physical exam. The doctor will want to know whether you have had other symptoms, like fever, chills, pain, or unusual lumps on the torso. The doctor will also want to know whether your appetite is good and whether you have lost any weight. He or she may ask about asbestos exposure and cigarette use. California Mesothelioma Attorney

Our use of the term or terms California Mesothelioma Attorney is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Lung Cancer Lawsuit: Patients with Lung Cancer (stage I or II disease), bone scan­ning and CT of the brain are not recommended in the absence of related symptoms. A bone scan should be performed only if the patient complains of bone pain. Plain radio graphic films of the affected area should be ob­tained to supplement the bone scan. If questions still exist after the studies are completed, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the painful area may also be performed. Finally, biopsy of the involved bony area may be re­quired. Similarly, CT or MR imaging of the brain should be performed only if the patient has neurological symptoms or if the diagnosis of SCLC is suspected. It is not cost-effective to perform CT of the brain in an other­wise asymptomatic patient with lung cancer who has no neurological symptoms and is physiologically fit and stage-appropriate for surgery.

In patients with more advanced disease, bone scanning and CT or MR imaging of the brain may have a higher yield in revealing occult metasta­tic disease. MR imaging is frequently used to complement CT in evaluating the location of these tumors within the chest. Specifically, MR imaging is helpful for evaluating bony invasion of the chest wall or other structures. In patients with superior sulcus tumors and patients with tu­mors involving the first and second or third ribs, MR imaging may provide additional information beyond that obtainable with CT regarding the ex­tent of the tumor’s involvement of the brachial plexus, thoracic inlet, great vessels, or other structure. Tumor suppressor genes, such as p53, normally provide a negative influ­ence on cell growth. If a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, then this nega­tive influence is removed and the tumor grows unchecked. Gene therapy trials to replace or modify p53 mutation are under way and have shown that gene therapy is safe when used in a clinical environment (Roth et al, 1996; Swisher et al, 1999) (for more information, see chapter 15). Mutations in the retinoblastoma (RB) gene are also associated with poor survival. If both p53 and RB mutations are present, survival is only 12 months, compared to 46 months in patients with normal expression of the corresponding proteins.

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Lung Cancer Lawsuit: Anatomic resection of lung cancer is the gold standard for treatment of early-stage NSCLC. Lobectomy has been shown to be superior to lesser resection even in patients with stage IA disease (T1N0) (Ginsberg and Ru­binstein, 1995). Lesser resection, such as wedge resection or segmentec- tomy, is reserved for patients in whom anatomic resection would carry a prohibitive risk of complications. In patients unable to tolerate surgery, ra­diation therapy can also be used as primary treatment. Potential compli­cations of radiation therapy include esophagitis and fatigue. Radiation- induced myelitis of the spinal cord is devastating; the risk of this complication can be minimized by careful administration of treatment. Three-dimensional radiation therapy may further focus the dose on the target area while minimizing radiation injury to surrounding tissues.

Most patients with advanced-stage NSCLC are treated nonsur- gically. However, some patients with advanced-stage disease may benefit from surgical resection. In deciding whether surgery is appropriate, the surgeon must balance the value of mechanical extirpation of the local dis­ease (e.g., local disease control, pain relief, and the potential for improved survival) with the risks associated with a surgical procedure. Typically, the risks exceed the potential benefits and surgery is not considered; however, in some patients, surgery for advanced-stage lung cancer may provide benefit in the form of local tumor control, palliation of symptoms, im­proved quality of life, and the potential for improved survival. Surgery may also be used for palliation of the symptoms of advanced disease. Surgery along with laser ablative techniques and stent placement can be used to manage or relieve obstruction of the trachea or main-stem bronchi. We have shown that treatment of recurrent symptomatic pleural effusions with surgical placement of a chronic indwelling pleural catheter (Pleurx; Denver Biomedical Inc., Golden, Colorado) provides excellent re­lief of dyspnea and allows patients to function independently outside the hospital.

Concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy may be better toler­ated and result in improved survival compared to sequential chemother­apy and radiation therapy. Patients with inoperable clinical stage HIA or IIIB disease and good pulmonary status and performance status should be treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Trials of these modali­ties for patients with clinical stage IIIA NSCLC showed a modest but sig­nificant improvement in survival compared to survival after radiation therapy alone. An ongoing prospective multi-institutional trial is compar­ing chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery versus chemotherapy and radiation therapy to define the role of surgery in improving local con­trol beyond that obtained with radiation therapy alone. Although concur­rent therapy may improve survival, this approach is associated with greater toxicity.

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Lung Cancer : Fever may result from pneumonia, or it may occur in the absence of frank infection in patients with postobstructive atelectasis. Chest pain com­monly occurs in patients whose disease involves the pleura or chest wall. Hoarseness may result from vocal cord paralysis in patients with mediasti­nal disease affecting the recurrent laryngeal nerve; occasionally, patients with massive mediastinal disease may develop bilateral vocal cord paraly­sis, resulting in stridor due to upper airway obstruction. Patients with large right-sided central tumors may develop obstruction of the superior vena cava, resulting in a typical syndrome of swelling and venous distension of the face, neck, and chest wall, sometimes associated with shortness of breath, headache, and, in extreme cases, altered mental status.

Liver metastases occur frequently in patients with lung cancer, more commonly with SCLC than with NSCLC. The symptoms of hepatic metas­tases may include jaundice and right upper quadrant pain associated with the findings of hepatomegaly and liver tenderness on examination. How­ever, these findings usually occur only in patients with very advanced liver disease. More commonly, hepatic metastases present with less spe­cific symptoms, such as anorexia, malaise, and weight loss.

Another form of CNS metastasis from lung cancer is involvement of the spinal cord. This may occur in the form of spinal cord compression (usually due to direct extension of vertebral body metastases into the spinal canal), intramedullary metastases (relatively uncommon), or leptomeningeal seeding of the spinal canal. Spinal cord compression and intramedullary metastases are rarely asymptomatic and should be identified rapidly as they constitute neurological emergencies necessitating immediate treat­ment. About 90% of patients complain of back pain—either localized or radicular—as their first symptom. At diagnosis, about 75% of patients will note muscle weakness, and 50% will have associated sensory loss below the level of the metastasis. Bowel or bladder incontinence is another less common symptom of cord compression. On physical examination, patients with spinal cord compression typically have back tenderness at the site of metastasis. Other associated findings on physical examination may include sensory loss or paresis below the level of the metastasis, decrease in anal sphincter tone, muscle spasticity, and abnormal deep tendon reflexes.

The clinical evaluation of patients with suspected lung cancer generally in­cludes routine laboratory work, consisting of a complete blood count (in­cluding a differential blood count and a platelet count) and a full set of serum chemistry studies. These laboratory tests may be useful indicators of possible sites of metastatic disease (e.g., elevated results on liver function tests or an elevated alkaline phosphatase level might direct the clinician to look for liver or bone métastasés, respectively).

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Lung Cancer Lawsuit: A dedicated CT scan of the abdomen is generally not required in the rou­tine evaluation of lung cancer patients because the chest CT typically in­cludes enough of the upper abdomen to permit evaluation for metastasis to the liver and adrenals. However, if the clinician’s index of suspicion of liver metastasis is high (e.g., if the chest CT suggests hepatic involve­ment or if the patient has unexplained elevation of the results of liver function tests), then a dedicated CT scan of the abdomen with a contrast agent is warranted to conclusively rule out liver metastases if this find­ing would affect the patient’s treatment.

In the “routine” staging of lung cancer, additional radiographic studies, including CT and MR imaging of the brain and bone scans, should be dictated by the circumstances of the case. Certainly, in patients experi­encing neurological symptoms for which palliative radiation therapy or resection would be considered, CT or MR imaging of the brain is indi­cated. Similarly, patients experiencing bone pain for which palliative ra­diation therapy would be offered should have a bone scan with or with­out plain films. In addition to the roles of MR imaging in screening for brain metastasis and evaluation of suspicious adrenal enlargement, MR imaging also has a role in the preoperative evaluation of patients with superior sulcus tu­mors and patients with other potentially operable T4 lesions. The presence of chest wall or vertebral body invasion is often difficult to distinguish with chest CT alone. MR imaging of the chest is generally superior in this regard and is helpful to the thoracic surgeon in planning resection.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is able to characterize lung le­sions reliably in most cases, failing to detect only very small lesions and tumors of a very indolent nature. PET may therefore play a role in the evaluation of patients with solitary pulmonary nodules. PET scanning is also a useful tool in documenting the presence of mediastinal lymph node metastases, with reported sensitivity and specificity of more than 90%. In this regard, PET is more accurate than CT scanning, although PET images lack the anatomic precision seen with CT scans. PET scans also have po­tential utility in detecting otherwise undetected widespread metastases in patients for whom curative resection is being considered. At this time, our recommendations regarding the optimal use of PET scans in the staging of lung cancer are still evolving.

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Lung Cancer: AH patients who are being considered for surgical treatment of their lung cancer should undergo complete pulmonary function testing, including analysis of the diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide and ar­terial blood gas analysis, to identify patients at increased risk of postoper­ative pulmonary complications of lung resection. Generally, patients with a forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEVj) of greater than 2 L and a maximum voluntary ventilation of greater than 55% of predicted can tol­erate a pneumonectomy A lobectomy is considered feasible in patients with FEVj of more than 1 L and a maximum voluntary ventilation of at least 40% of predicted. If results on routine pulmonary function tests are borderline, then a xenon ventilation perfusion scan and oxygen consump­tion studies may be done to further evaluate a patient’s suitability to un­dergo potentially curative resection of lung cancer.

Sputum cytology is a simple, noninvasive way to confirm cancer, but this approach is often nondiagnostic and is highly dependent on factors such as the location and size of the tumor with respect to the major airways and the patient’s ability to produce adequate sputum specimens. Thus, the yield with sputum cytology is less than 20% for patients with small peripheral lesions. The usefulness of sputum cytology is further limited by the neces­sity of a thorough head and neck examination to rule out head and neck primary lesions in patients in whom findings on sputum cytology are pos­itive for squamous cancer.

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Lung Cancer Lawsuit: Flexible fiber-optic bronchoscopy is a useful tool for diagnosing suspected lung cancer, although this method is somewhat dependent on the size, lo­cation, and accessibility of the primary tumor. Endobronchial lesions that can be directly visualized are sampled with the use of biopsy forceps, washings, and brushings; the yield of bronchoscopy for such lesions is greater than 80%. More peripheral lesions may be sampled with trans­bronchial biopsy, washings, and brushings, with the diagnostic yield highly dependent on the size of the lesion. For example, the yield is about 25% for lesions smaller than 2 cm but may be as high as 80% for lesions larger than 4 cm. Submucosal tumors (e.g., small cell carcinoma) may be sampled with transbronchial biopsy as well.

Twenty to 30% of patients with lung cancer present with a solitary lung opacity on thoracic imaging. Assessment of morphologic features and growth rate can be useful in differentiating malignant from benign soli­tary lesions. However, often the nature of a solitary lung opacity cannot be determined with conventional anatomic imaging (radiographs and/or routine nonenhanced and contrast-enhanced computed tomography [CT] and magnetic resonance [MR] images). In such cases, the opacity can be further evaluated with dynamic contrast-enhanced CT or with positron emission tomography (PET) using a radioactive glucose analog, fluo- rodeoxyglucose F IS (FDG), the metabolism of which is typically in­creased in malignant cells compared to benign cells. Lesions with indeter­minate etiology after comprehensive radiologic assessment are observed, biopsied, or resected.

Once a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been es­tablished, the disease is staged according to the International System for Staging Lung Cancer. This system describes the extent of NSCLC in terms of the primary tumor (T descriptor), lymph nodes (N descriptor), and metastases (M descriptor). The T descriptor defines the size, location, and extent of the primary tumor. Because the extent of the primary tumor de­termines whether the disease will be treated with surgical resection or with palliative radiation therapy or chemotherapy, CT is usually used to assess the degree of pleural, chest wall, and mediastinal invasion. MR im­aging has superior soft-tissue contrast resolution and multiplanar capa­bility and is thus particularly useful in the evaluation of superior sulcus tumors.

Screening for lung cancer—efforts to detect lung cancer before symptoms develop—has been advocated as a means for improving the prognosis of patients with this disease. The concept is supported by 2 main observa­tions; most patients with lung cancer have advanced disease at the time of clinical presentation, and the diagnosis of lung cancer at an early stage is usually associated with improved prognosis. However, the role of imag­ing in screening is not clearly defined.

Recently, there has been renewed interest in evaluating lung cancer screening, in part because of a belief that the older trials were flawed in design and methodology and also because of advances in radiologic im­aging that have occurred in the interim (Kaneko et al, 1996; Strauss, 1997; Henschke et al, 1999). In particular, the advent of computed tomography (CT) has allowed detection of small lung cancers not apparent on conven­tional chest radiographs. Two recent small studies have confirmed that there is increased detection of small lung cancers when CT is used to screen patients considered to be at high risk for developing lung cancer (Kaneko et al, 1996; Henschke et al, 1999). In one of these studies, the Early Lung Cancer Action Project, low-dose helical CT was used to screen for lung cancer in 1,000 patients (Henschke et al, 1999). Lung cancer was de­tected in 2.7% of these patients with CT but in only 0.7% with chest radi­ography.

Our use of the term or terms Lung Cancer and Lung Cancer Lawsuit is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

Our use of the term or terms Lung Cancer and Lung Cancer Lawsuit is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Carrier IQ Class Action Lawsuit News- 1/26/2012: Physical privacy is the right to be free from unwanted, unreasonable intrusions into, or searches of, one’s body. It is concerned with bodily integrity (and, indirectly, emotional integrity, together with human dignity). Issues revolving around physical privacy include schemes for compulsory immunisation, blood transfusion without consent, compulsory provision of samples of body fluids and body tissue, and compulsory sterilisation (Clarke, 2000). Physical privacy also is defined as freedom from contact or monitoring by others.³⁵ Physical privacy is not usually the focus of the discussion on biometric information, but it is difficult to delineate clearly and neatly the relationship between an individual’s bodily integrity and bodily information, on which the demarcation between the rights to physical privacy and informational privacy is based. Determining exactly when bodily matter becomes data and information is challenging—as the case of DNA illustrates. In any case, it is important not to completely sever discussion about use of body data from use of the body; to do so ignores the close and constitutive link between these data and a person’s identity as embodied person (Plogue, 2001).

The fuzzy nature of biometrics poses novel challenges and can create new security holes. Unlike passwords or plain text, each time a biometric is measured the obser­vation might differ. In the case of fingerprint matching, for example, the reading might change because of elastic deformations in the skin when placed on the sen­sor, or because of dust particles, oil, and so on. Moreover the devices that are in use—cameras, sensors, and so on—are, like human eyes and feelings, imperfect; they will not always be able to distinguish subtle differences between people.

The challenge of confronting any radically developing technology is that it must be approached with a broad understanding of the practical and technological reali­ties and limitations. As we embrace the biometric technology, however, we have to pause to consider some of the implications of its widespread implementations, especially its potential risks to privacy. Biometric information is a special category of personal information which is intimately linked to our physical body, while having the potential to become a relatively unique and stable digital representation of each individual in the computer world. Our right to informational privacy and physical privacy may all be at risk with unlimited use of such technology. Ascribing property rights to biometric information may alleviate this risk somewhat but is regarded by many as a relatively controversial move.

Biometrics’ current state of effectiveness still leaves much to be desired. The qual­ity and accuracy level of biometric technology as it now stands do not actually offer the gains in security as demonstrated by many vendors or advocators. Having addressed some of the misconceptions around the technology, it is perhaps worth noting that biometric technology alone can not provide an answer to security is­sues. The inherent nature of biometric technology provides enormous potential for undermining privacy, despite the fact that, as it stands now, such technology does not offer all the matching, tracking and linking possibilities that are commonly envisaged. The inaccuracies and the security risks posed by biometric technology have, rather ironically, added more security problems, something not generally known. As mentioned previously, biometric technology for the near future at least is more likely to function as a convenient alternative or supplement to traditional authentication methods than as a security enhancement tool.

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As Wilson shows, biometric authentication entails a long chain of processing steps, all of which are imperfect. The imperfection is caused by various factors, and is at the same time unavoidable as the body parts measured can never be exactly the same each time. A biometric device has to be able to tolerate to some extent the variations of the input; inevitably this means the system may make mistakes. Consequently, accuracy of a biometric system cannot be measured exactly. The system accuracy is commonly assessed in terms of the system’s ten­dency to generate a False Acceptance Rate (FAR), which is equivalent to a False Match Rate (FMR) or False Rejection Rate (FRR), which is equivalent to a False Non Match Rate (FNMR). These error rates are often just estimated for the portion of user population that is not subject to exception handling^.

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During their headlong rush onto the Internet during the last decade, many organisa­tions have overlooked the importance of human values to the parties that they deal with. Both consumers and small businesspeople feel powerless when they deal with larger organisations. They would like to have “friends in high places” who can help them when they encounter difficulties. They also fear the consolidation of power that they see going on around them, as governments integrate vast data collections, corporations merge and enter into strategic alliances, and “public-private partner­ships” blur organisational boundaries across sectors. As a result, distrust is more commonly encountered than trust.

One context within which trust is critical is the relationship between employers on the one hand, and employees and contractors on the other. In some countries, par­ticularly the USA, employers have been intruding into their employees’ data, into their behaviour—not only in the workplace but also beyond it—and even into their employees’ bodies in the form of substance-abuse testing, and even the insertion of identity chips. Such measures substitute a power-relationship for loyalty, with the result that employees become exactly what the employer treats them as—sullen opponents who are likely to disclose company secrets and even to commit sabotage. The negative impact on corporate morale and performance is even more marked in the case of staff members on whose creativity the organisation depends for innova­tion, because a climate of surveillance and distrust chills behaviour and stultifies creative thought and action (Clarke, 2006a).

The activities of large organisations do not naturally protect the privacy of employ­ees, nor of customers and suppliers. On the contrary, the increase in the scale of corporations and government agencies through the 20^th century, the greater social distance between institution and individual, the greater dependence on data instead of human relationships, and the de-humanising nature of computer-based systems, have together resulted in large organisations both being perceived to be, and being, seriously threatening to privacy. If organisations are to avoid distrust arising from their privacy-invasive behaviour, and particularly if they wish to use their behaviour in relation to people as a means of inculcating trust, then they need to adopt a strategic approach to privacy. This section introduces privacy strategy and outlines key techniques.

Our use of the term or terms Carrier IQ Class Action Lawsuit: is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit News – 1/27/2012: While it may have been the telephone that shifted the privacy debate from the physical to the electronic, it was the advent of the computer that presented law and policy makers with their biggest challenge. First produced in 1946, by the early 1970s the computer’s threat to personal privacy became apparent (HEW,1973, p. 29). One could glean not only communications from a computer, but financial and other highly sensitive personal information. In 1973, the U.S. Department ofHealth, Education, and Welfare issued what turned out to be a watershed publication: its report on “Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens” (HEW, 1973, p. 29). HEW observed the breadth of the computer’s potential incursion into the lives of all citizens.

The Act regulates the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal information. It applied only to the federal government and not to state and local authorities nor to individuals. In general, the act restricted disclosure of personally. Four years later, Congress addressed issues that the Privacy act did not. First, the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C.§ 3401 et seq.) required that government officials use a warrant or subpoena to obtain financial information and that there be “reason to believe that the records sought are relevant to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry.”

The second relevant piece of 1978 legislation has substantial reverberations in today’s post-September 11 United States. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. § 1801 et seq.) gives law enforcement officials greater leeway in accessing private information if the purpose of the investigation is to gather foreign intelligence. In other criminal investigational contexts, courts grant authority to gather information if there is probably cause to believe a crime is being or has been committed. Under FISA, however, law enforcement officials need only demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that investigation’s target is a “foreign power” or “an agent of a foreign power.”

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Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (18 U.S.C. § 2710-11), enacted in response to reporters’ attempts to discover the viewing habits of Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork, codified a similar prohibition against disclosing video rental and purchase histories. In the interim between the Cable and Video Acts, Congress turned its attention to more generalized concern about the newly recognized capabilities of computers. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-22, 2701­). In 1996, Congress turned its attention to the issue of electronic health information. The purpose ofthe Health Insurance Portability andAccountabilityAct (AHIPAA@) (42 U.S.C. §§ 1320d-8) was to “improve portability and continuity of health insur­ance coverage in the group and individual markets.” Thus, it limited the ability of group health plans to disqualify applicants for pre-existing health conditions. Recognizing that the mandate would increase costs to insurers and providers, in an apparently misguided attempt to produce cost savings by other means, the legisla­tion encouraged the use of electronic health records. That, in turn, led Congress to be concerned about the privacy of those e-health records. The regulatory provisions that accompany HIPAA mandate data care and security in the collection, storage, and sharing of “individually identifiable health information” and allow only the disclosure of the “minimum necessary” to effect treatment or payment.

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When the FISA wall came down, a dichotomy in privacy rights ascended. If the government does not suggest that a person is in any way connected to foreign intelligence, that person’s privacy is relatively secure. But, if one of the purposes of the government’s investigation is based on a suspicion that the investigation’s target may provide a source of foreign intelligence, that person’s privacy rights are much less secure.

In March 2007, the extent of the use of PATRIOT Act investigations and the paucity of legal, administrative, and practical limitations on those investigations became apparent. The FBI’s Inspector General issued a report documenting that the FBI has issued 20,000 subpoenas annually of telephone, financial, and business records without prior courts approval. Yet, the report concluded, “the program lacks ef­fective management, monitoring and reporting” (David Johnson & Eric Lipton, U.S. Report to Fault F.B.I. on Subpoenas, N.Y. Times, March 9, 2007). Indeed, the report concluded that nearly one fourth of the reviewed “information letters,” as the subpoenas are known, involved violations of the applicable law (Solomon & Gellman, 2007).

Certainly, federal law occupies the field of privacy’s limits in international com­munications. But, states can, and do, regulate the privacy of arrest records, bank records, cable TV records, computer crime, credit reporting, government data banks, employment records, insurance records, mailing lists, medical records, school records, social security numbers, and tax records (Summary of state privacy laws, 2007). The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution provides that federal laws trump conflicting state laws. At times, the applicable federal laws are explicit about their preemptive impact. For example, HIPAA provides that it is a floor for privacy protection of health information. States may provide greater protection (45 CFR Parts 160, 164).

So, one might ask, “What are my rights to electronic privacy in the United States?” The answer is, “it depends.” And, it depends on a lot of variables. Are you currently in the U.S.? Are you communicating electronically with anyone outside of the U.S.? Do you reside in a state that protects your electronic privacy? Are you using the Internet? Have you visited a Web site that caters to children under the age of 13? Are you engaged in banking activity? Are you transmitting video or watching cable TV? Are your transmitting or receiving health information? And, maybe most importantly, regardless of the wishes of Congress or the courts, has the President of the United States authorized someone to view your private information?

The vision that this exercise produces is not atypical oftheAmerican legal landscape. The law is a quilt rendered patchwork by conflicting goals that sometimes seek protection of information and, at other times, seek and revelation of information. The patchwork is also informed by independent, and sometimes conflicting, sources for the laws’ creations: courts and legislatures. And, those courts and legislatures exist in a republic at both the federal level. Finally, the political context, at times shaped by external sources of terrorism and at other times shaped by internal strife, pushes the law’s evolution on a path that is anything buy linear.

Our use of the term or terms Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit: is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Cell Phone Class Action

Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit News – 1/27/2012: The most pervasive individual Web privacy concerns stems from secondary use of information, defined as personal information collected for one purpose and used, subsequently, for a different purpose (Culnan, 1993). Studies suggests that (a) users are more willing to provide personal information when they are not identified, (b) some information is more sensitive than other, and (c) the most important factor is whether or not the information will be shared with other companies. Unlike law enforcement investigations (as opposed to secret police monitoring), launched only after crimes have been committed, wholesale monitoring of Internet usage is done before any illegal act occurs (Caloyannides, 2003).

Continued advances in information technology in general, and the growth of Internetworking technologies specifically, further facilitate the collection, distribution, and use of personal information. Due to increasing Web users day by day people have also started raising concerns while doing online transactions over the Internet. A 1998 survey examining scenarios and privacy preferences suggests that Web users can be statistically clustered into three primary groups based on their attitudes and privacy (Ackerman, Cranor, & Reagle, 1999). Privacy fundamentalists (17 percent) are described as unwilling to provide any data to Web sites and are very concerned about any use of data. The pragmatic majority (56 percent) are concerned about data use but could be made comfortable by the presence of privacy protection measures such as laws and privacy policy statements, and the remaining respondents (27 percent) are categorized as marginally concerned (Turner & Dasgupta, 2003). Similar results from a separate study conducted in Germany in 2000 not only identify the privacy fundamentalists (30 percent) and the marginally concerned (24 percent), but also describe two distinct subgroups within the middle tier delineated as identity concerned (20 percent) and profiling averse (25 percent).

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Most consumers want to be informed about what information is be­ing collected from them, how the data will be used, and whether their information will only be used in an aggregate form. Users are less likely to perceive business practices as privacy invasive when they perceive that information is collected in the context of an existing relationship, is relevant to the transaction, will be used to draw reliable and valid inferences, and they have the ability to control its future use.

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The United States negotiated a safe harbor agreement with the EU commission, wherein U.S. companies can voluntarily self-certify to adhere to a set of privacy principles loosely based on the fair information practices developed by the commerce department and the EU Commission. The primary difference under safe harbor is the ability of U.S. companies to administer self-enforcement by the European Commissioner or other agencies for compliance with the explicit rules of the EU directive (Consumer International, 2003). Although the United States recently passed new online privacy legislation, including the Childerns Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Provisions in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Modernization Act (GLB) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), these laws are applicable to relatively narrow types of information and particular industry sectors (Turner & Dasgupta, 2003).

The issue of who has control over personal data and how this data is used needs to be addressed at a global level in order for the Internet to develop into a trusted, widely acceptable international marketplace for the exchange of goods and services. The primary technology for collecting information on an individual’s activities over the Internet has been the Web “Cookie.” Cookies are digital information sent from a Web server and stored on the hard drive of an individual’s computer by the browser software or network application. Cookies were designed to address the problem of statelessness inherent in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (Kristol, 2002). Because a browser does not stay connected to a server, but instead makes a connec­tion, sends its request, downloads the response, and makes a new connection to send another request, it severely limited the functionality ofWeb services and complicated application development.

Our use of the term or terms Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit: is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit

Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit News- 1/27/2012: RFID readers, GPS phones and motes all emit electromagnetic energy over the airwaves and cover areas as large as six square acres (Albrecht & McIntyre, 2004). Further, readers are installed and operational in walls, floors, doorways, shelving, cars, security, and payment devices with RFID slated for release in clothing, re­frigerators, medicine bottles and other everyday objects imminently (Albrecht & McIntyre, 2004, pg 51). Yet, as of January, 2007, there is no published research on electromagnetic energy impacts on human health and well-being (OECD, 2006). Sometimes cell phones and the Internet are the catalysts for social change, and sometimes they reflect social change: either way, these technologies are contributing to subtle changes in American values and to how different groups (based on age, gender, class, and race) use those changes to define individual and group identities. This book is about the changes that cell phones and the Internet—the dynamic duo—are bringing to American life, where the technologies always seem to be “on.” As a cultural history, this book examines how these two technologies—separately and together—are contributing to a change in American attitudes, behaviors, and cultural values.

It is probably human nature to want to believe that all technologies make our lives easier, better, or more efficient. After all, commercials for these products and services promise us better control over the chaos of our lives. When we first start using a new technology, we experience a learning curve. For those who learn quickly, expectations for what the technology can do for us can be wonderful. Those who struggle to learn how to use the technology may experience greater stress or anxiety. Some people try something, only to realize that they don’t really like or need it. But those who do master the technology tend not to notice how they begin to rely on it. The instantaneous nature of communicating with cell phones and the Internet leads us to transmit and receive information faster and with less consideration for how it might affect our lives. Our ability to connect immediately, anywhere, anytime, to someone conditions us to think of all activities in full operation twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That hum we feel in the air may be constant, invisible potential for immediacy—or it may well be anxiety, particularly for those who allow these technologies to infiltrate so many aspects of daily life. Or, it may accompany the unspoken reality that our daily activities, both private and public, are changing our culture in ways that we don’t yet truly understand, and for that reason, we feel uncomfortable.

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Is there a relationship between the growing use of cell phones and the Internet and the pressures we feel in our lives to do more, to spend more time online, and to consider using even more technology? Part of our anxiety may be caused by the instability we feel while we negotiate the new social rules, norms, and uses of technology and as we figure out how to match our expectations with what is really possible, and yet, there seems to be no turning back to a simpler time. The continuous dance between technological innovation and social use of cell phones.

At first it may sound like a stretch to claim that technology has the potential to shape the way we think about other things in life. After all, many of us have been led to believe that technology has no real power in itself and that it’s how people use technology that matters. Neil Postman wrote a book titled Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology,⁹ in which he explains how using technology leads us to think of everything in technological terms. According to Postman, human beings have a need to fit the pieces of their lives into something that gives the impression of coherence, and the technologies themselves structure our interests. That’s why we often seek technological solutions to technological ques­tions and why we often reach for more technology to solve the problems caused by present technologies. We may not be consciously aware of the many ways in which technology structures our thoughts, but at the unconscious level, the same characteristics that are inherent in the technology begin to creep into our daily practices. This affects both our behavior and attitudes, but also our as­sumptions and expectations. Throughout the twentieth century, American society embraced the belief that technology equaled progress and that if we could get technology into the hands of more people, we could all participate in the great American Dream of consuming products and enjoying better, more comfortable lives.

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These wonderful inventions have done so much to liberate us from traditional ways of working or communicating with friends or family, but we often are unaware of the “speed-up” in our lives. We tend to be working more, playing less, and finding that by being always connected by phone or computer to responsibilities and obligations, our stress levels increase, rather than decrease. The technologies make it easer to react in moments, but at the same time, we can speed through tasks and ignore thinking about their consequences or their quality. It’s hard to relax when the constant barrage of messages demands our attention. Like Pavlov’s dog, we become conditioned to respond immediately to electronic messages. Our nerves and senses become keenly attuned, we viscerally need to respond, and we therefore contribute to the constant hum of information and message flow and exchange. People who jump to grab their cell phones when one rings in a public place, even if it isn’t their own phone, know about this type of conditioning.

On the surface, changes to the Internet may seem less obvious, but in reality they are even more profound. The ubiquity of accessing the Internet through a host of technologies and the growing functionality of cell phones to access the Internet is throwing the traditional media companies into a tizzy to find suitable content for delivery to the small video screen. Advertisers are fearful that they may lose their traditional revenue streams if they continue to promote products the old fashioned way. Subscription services that don’t include ads or content that had been designed to catch someone’s attention change the way people may be motivated to think about a purchase of a product. The biggest change, though, is how pop-up ads, animation, and design factors punctuate content on the computer screen, competing for attention and immediate action from the consumer, all of which can be seen more legibly on a large computer screen, but which suffers when reduced to a two-inch cell phone screen.

Our use of the term or terms Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit : is for descriptive purposes only. There is no relationship between the owners of this website and the maker of the product discussed in this post. Our use of the words Recall, Class Action Lawsuit and other similar words related to an event do not necessarily mean that this event has occurred. Refer to the website of the United States Food and Drug Administration for information on drug or medical device recalls. If a Class Action Lawsuit is formed in relation to the product discussed in this post we will provide that information at the time the Class Action is formed. A Class Action Lawsuit is not required to exist for you to file a lawsuit if you have been injured by the product discussed in this post.

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Cell Phone Class Action Lawsuit