Today’s post comes from guest author Kristina Brown Thompson, from The Jernigan Law Firm.

Lately there’s been a lot of buzz surrounding a drug known as ketamine. Some workers’ compensation patients with chronic, neuropathic pain [i.e. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD)] are lauding ketamine as a new wonder drug and a few pain clinics are now prescribing ketamine therapy to treat certain pain conditions when other treatment is not effective. Yet, ketamine is by no means a new drug. Developed in the 1960s, ketamine has typically been used as a pediatric anesthetic or by the military in emergency surgery situations (think Vietnam). It’s a serious medication and is typically administered intravenously in the clinic.

Clearly, ketamine is a potent drug. Not to mention that it’s a derivative of Phencyclidine (“PCP” or “Angel Dust”). On the street, ketamine is called “Special K” and is highly sought for its hallucinogenic side effects. Yet, now it’s being prescribed in certain contexts for treatment of major depression and chronic pain conditions (i.e. CRPS/RSD) and being hailed by some as an effective treatment modality where others have failed. 

The press surrounding ketamine lately has largely been optimistic. Last year, NPR broadcast a piece on Talk of the Nation featuring ketamine. The program discussed ketamine’s potential as a fast-acting drug to relieve major depression, particularly when other medications were no longer effective. A few months ago, Time ran an online article entitled “Club Drug Ketamine Lifts Depression in Hours.” Based on the title alone, what depression sufferer wouldn’t want to try ketamine? The article reported that “[a]fter receiving a single intravenous (IV) does of ketamine, 64% of patients reported fewer depression symptoms within one day compared to 28% of those given midazolam – an anesthetic drug that was used as a control.” Even CBS News ran an article earlier this year stating that “[k]etamine may be quick, effective treatment for untreatable depression.” 

RSD patients and pain clinics are reporting similar fast-acting pain relief stories. One patient reported that ketamine therapy reduced her pain to a manageable 5 out of 10, on a pain scale of 1 to 10 with 10 representing the most amount of pain imaginable (see article). Another patient who had full-body CRPS had undergone several pain treatment modalities. She had tried Bier blocks, spinal blocks, and a spinal cord stimulator. Nothing relieved her pain. However, after about a year on the ketamine treatment program, she was able to mow her lawn for the first time in ten years. 

Ketamine is a controversial topic in the medical community. There is not much research on the long-term effects of ketamine use. Some say that chronic use of ketamine may cause verbal, short-term memory and visual memory loss. Some research indicates that the effects on the brain are irreversible. Currently not many clinics are offering ketamine therapy. Clearly the potential benefits could be tremendous and RSD/CRPS treatment could be revolutionized. However, as with any form of therapy, patients should discuss the benefits and risks carefully with their doctor.

Prior results do not guarantee outcomes.
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Shadows on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Memorial

Today’s post comes from guest author Jay Causey from Causey Law Firm.

On March 25, 1911 a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City.  In 18 minutes 146 garment workers, mostly young women, were dead.  The hideous circumstances of the tragedy – widely depicted by the media with front-page pictures of the corpses of women who had jumped from the building windows to avoid being burned to death – incited a wave of public revulsion that contributed to New York’s enactment of one of the nation’s first workers’ compensation statutes.  This occurred in the so-called “Progressive” era of American political history – now largely a distant memory – when within the next decade the majority of states followed suit.

One hundred years later, similar tragedies in the world-wide garment industry, which feeds U.S. corporations like WalMart, H&M, and Gap, occur with scant media attention other than the possible effect of such disasters on corporate business operations.  In November of 2012, 112 garment workers died in a fire at a Bangladeshi factory producing WalMart clothing. (A manager had reportedly closed an exit gate after the fire alarm sounded, telling workers nothing was wrong and to just keep working.)  In another Bangladeshi factory on January 26, 2013, a fire killed seven garment workers who could not escape due to a blocked exit.

Rather than expressing outrage over these circumstances, U.S. media, including the New York Times, characterized these incidents not as human tragedies, inexcusably occurring in the 21^st century industrial world, but as “blows to the Bangladeshi garment industry.”  The fact is that with the globalization of that industry, these Bangladeshi workers are essentially “our” workers, making the clothes Americans wear, sold to us by U.S. corporate behemoths competing to do this at the lowest price possible they think will be acceptable to the American consumer.  The media is complicit in disconnecting these tragedies from our consciousness as intolerable – just as was the sense of our citizenry after Triangle – by focusing it’s reporting on the economic impact to the garment business and blandly parroting the boilerplate disclaimers of responsibility given them by the industry.

The garment corporations could easily afford to ensure their foreign contractors increase workers’ wages and institute workers’ safety measures with a minimal impact on the final price and their bottom line.

These incidents are almost never reported in a way that puts the question to the American consumer as to whether we’d pay a bit more per unit of clothing to ensure the safety of these workers rather than participate in the race to the lowest possible price.  Labor cost as a component of garment retail price is miniscule – one to two percent.  The garment corporations could easily afford to ensure their foreign contractors increase workers’ wages and institute workers’ safety measures with a minimal impact on the final price and their bottom line.

As it turns out, however, when plans were being developed in 2011 to improve fire safety at Bangladeshi factories, those efforts were quashed by WalMart and Gap, who determined that preventing worker deaths from fire would cost too much: “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investment.”

Don’t expect to hear much more about all this from the corporate media.

Source:  www.fair.org

Photo credit: Photo credit: Madison Guy / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

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We wanted to take some time out on Labor Day to bring you this post by our colleague Charlie Domer from the Domer Law Firm in Wisconsin. We hope each of you have a safe and happy holiday.

Access to health insurance is under attack. President’s Obama’s comprehensive health care reform law, intended to increase health care coverage for millions of Americans, faced extreme scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court last week. Congressman Paul Ryan’s federal budget plan is a cynical and careless proposal that would slash Medicaid programs, while providing tax cuts for the wealthy. In Wisconsin, Governor Walker and his fellow Republicans also propose gutting funds to the state’s vital Medicaid program. The ultimate goal is hard to deny: certain politicians and interest groups actually want a country with more uninsured citizens. The personal toll on the uninsured is devastating, especially for those dealing with work injuries.

Access to health insurance alters this equation. If the worker had adequate access to health insurance, especially Medicaid, he could obtain the medical care that could allow a return to work, regardless of whether the worker’s compensation insurer accepted or denied the claim. 

As a worker’s compensation attorney, the following scenario plays out on a daily basis: A hard-working individual—who is lucky enough to have health insurance through the employer—is injured at work through no fault of his own. The injury is severe enough Continue reading →

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