Category Archives: Workplace Injury

9/11 Rescue Workers At Increased Risk for Cancer

Today’s post comes to us from our colleague Jon Gelman of New Jersey. If you think you have a Zadroga Bill or other 9/11-related claim, please contact our office for a free consultation.

Rescue and recovery workers at the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack site have been reported to be at greater risk of certain cancers. The study followed a group of workers who have been exposed to toxic dust and fumes following the attack in New York City.

The study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported an increased incidence of prostate and thyroid cancers, plus multiple myeloma.

Benefits are available under The Zadroga 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund Benefit Program.  The law was enacted by the US Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama about 3 years ago.

 

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Can Cell Phones Cause Cancer (On The Job)?

An Italian court ruled that excessive mobile phone use can cause cancer.

Today’s post comes to us from Thomas Domer of Wisconsin.  New York’s standard for an occupational disease claim is very similar to Wisconsin’s in that  an occupational disease must be caused by a recognizable link to the employee’s occupation. The harmful condition (cancer here) must have been caused by some aspect of the employment to be compensable.

An Italian court ruled that excessive mobile phone use can cause cancer. Italy’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling linking a business executive’s brain tumor and excessive mobile phone use. While much of the scientific opinion generally suggests there is not enough evidence to declare such a link, those studies were co-financed by the same companies that produce mobile telephones. The evidence in the Italian case was based on studies conducted between 2005 and 2009 by a group led by Dr. Lennart Hardell, cancer specialist at the University Hospital in Orebro in Sweden. The Italian court, relying on this research, noted this was independent research unlike other research financed by mobile telephone companies. The business executive Innocenzo Marcolini developed a tumor in the left side of his head after using his mobile telephone for 5 to 6 hours a day for a dozen years. He usually held the phone in his left hand while taking notes with his right hand.  He developed a “neurinoma” which affected his cranial nerve, and sought worker’s compensation from the Italian Worker’s Compensation Authority. The initial application was rejected because of a lack of proof but a court in Brescia later ruled there was a causal link between the use of mobile and cordless telephones and tumors.

Wisconsin provides benefits for an employee’s death or disability due to a cancerous condition if causally related to work exposure to carcinogens. There are numerous potential cancer causing agents in the workplace, but none so far have been linked to cell phone use. The causation standard is straightforward in Wisconsin. If the patient suffers from a condition caused by an “appreciable period of workplace exposure” the physicians are asked whether that exposure was either the sole cause of the condition or at least a material, contributory, causative factor in the condition’s onset or progression. This Italian court case suggests a further inquiry into the subject may be appropriate.

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The Costs and Complications of The Other Disease on Workers’ Compensation Claims

Source: NCCI

Today’s guest post comes to us from Jon Gelman of New Jersey.

Employers and their insurance companies are responsible for the treatment of all medical conditions that arise from an industrial accident or exposure. A recent study published by NCCI concludes that costs are soaring as medical conditions become more complicated by other conditions known as comorbidity diagnoses. These conditions are frequently: obesity, hypertension, drug abuse, chronic pulmonary conditions and diabetes.

“While the average medical cost for a workers compensation claim is approximately $6,000, the medical cost of an individual claim can be a few hundred dollars or millions of dollars. In 2010, an NCCI study found that claims with an obesity comorbidity diagnosis incurred significantly higher medical costs than comparable claims without such a comorbidity diagnosis. Relative to that study, this study expands the number of comorbidities examined and provides additional information on both the types of claimants receiving comorbidity diagnoses and the types of providers submitting comorbidity diagnoses.”

KEY FINDINGS

  • The share of workers compensation claims with a comorbidity diagnosis nearly tripled from Accident Year1 2000 to Accident Year 2009, growing from a share of 2.4% to 6.6%Claims with a comorbidity diagnosis have about twice the medical costs of otherwise comparable claims
  • Comorbidity diagnoses for hypertension are the most prevalent of those investigated
  • The initial comorbidity diagnosis tends to occur early in the life of a claim
  • Hospital and physician visits account for a majority of visits resulting in a recorded comorbidity diagnosis
  • Only a small portion of visits result in the recording of a comorbidity diagnosis

View complete report: Comorbidities in Workers Compensation

 

 

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Nursing Facilities Have Higher Incidence Of Workplace Injury Than Construction

Today’s post comes from guest author Nathan Reckman from Paul McAndrew Law Firm.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics “Workplace Injuries and Illnesses – 2010” report, the United States is becoming a safer place to work. In 2010, there were 3.1 million non-fatal work injuries reported. This translates to 3.5 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents, a slight decrease from the 2009 rate of 3.6 injuries per 100 full-time workers. The rate of injuries per 100 workers has been decreasing every year since 2002. In 2010, Iowa reported an above average number of work injuries, averaging 4.4 injuries per 100 full-time equivalent workers.

Of these 3.1 million injuries, nearly 76% (2.2 million) of injuries occurred in the service industry. Service jobs make up 82.4% of the labor market. Nearly 24% (0.7 million injuries) occurred in manufacturing industries, which make up 17.6% of the labor market.

Surprisingly, the state owned nursing and residential care facilities workers reported the most injuries at 14.7 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents. The industry with the most reported injuries in 2009, Local Government supported Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, improved from 12.5 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents to 8.6 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents in 2010.

The statistics are encouraging, but I look forward to the day where there are no fatal workplace injuries, and where workplace safety is a primary concern for all employers and workers.

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How Can Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) Be Treated? (Part 2)

Treatments can vary as symptoms change over time.

Today’s post comes from guest author Todd Bennett from Rehm, Bennett & Moore.

Today’s post is continued from last week, when we discussed the symptoms of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Today we will discuss treatment options.

The job of your doctor is to identify and treat your symptoms before they become incurable. Common forms of treatment for CRPS are 

  • physical therapy
  • injections
  • sympathetic mediated injections
  • sympathetic blocks
  • nerve conduction studies
  • CT scans
  • vasomotor studies
  • Doppler studies
  • bone-density tests
  • medications for pain & anti-inflammation

No single form of treatment has been found 100% effective.  Continue reading →

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What Is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)? (Part 1)

Diagnosis of CRPS is made through process of elimination.

Today’s post comes from guest author Todd Bennett from Rehm, Bennett & Moore.

Representing clients with chronic pain is both one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of my job.

The International Association for the Study of Pain sets forth four diagnostic criteria for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS):

  1. an initiating event,
  2. continuous pain,
  3. edema, temperature, or color differences affecting a limb, and
  4. excluding all other causes. 

These criteria are vague but, because diagnosis of CRPS is elusive, they are the established criteria for a physician identifying and treating chronic pain that cannot be attributed to any other cause.

When your doctor believes the pain you are experiencing is out of proportion to your examination findings and the severity of your injury, it creates a problem. However, this is quite common when suffering from complex regional pain syndrome. While those who suffer from CRPS are often frurstrated because the exact cause of the pain cannot be proven, the medical literature confirms that this disease, and the resulting pain, is real! 

The 3 stages of complex regional pain syndrome, ie. chronic pain, are variable but the descriptions below show how the disease can progress: Continue reading →

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The 11 Most Life-Threatening Jobs on the Planet

Today’s post comes from guest author Paul J. McAndrew, Jr. from Iowa, who shared this illuminating post with his readers. We often focus on the dangers of jobs close to home (numbers 6, 8, 9 & 10), but others jobs around the world also pose great risk their workers. We hope that regulations are put in place in every country to ensure worker safety.

Today’s post comes to us from our colleagues at insurancequotes.org.

The danger workers face on the job is not always compensated by higher pay. Life-threatening jobs can be mind-numbingly simple, easily performed by unskilled workers or children, or as physically and mentally demanding as one can imagine. Cable television shows like Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers give some sense of the dangers faced by workers in the sea fishing and truck driving industries respectively, while films like Workingman’s Death (2005) document examples of dangerous, and almost pointlessly unproductive manual labor. Below are 11 life-threatening jobs ranging from the banal to the bizarre.

Photo by Nate Robert, licensed through Creative Commons.

  1. Street Sweeper (Rwanda)The most humble of jobs can be the most dangerous. On the streets of Kigali province, in the country of Rwanda, women dressed in blue work from dawn to dusk sweeping the roads and highways. Drivers, going several miles per hour, zoom past, their cars missing the street-sweeping women by just inches. The women wear no reflective clothing, and there are no cautionary signs or pylons alerting drivers of the presence of these women on the road. In a country with 30% unemployment, street sweeping, which pays approximately $3 a day, is a sought-after job.
  2. King Crab Fisherman (Alaska, United States)
    More dramatic than street sweeping, crab fishing in the Bering Sea is one of the world’s most dangerous professions. The fishing takes place night and day in rough waters that constantly and violently rock the boats, sending high waves crashing over the decks. Fishermen can slip on the soaked deck, get hit by flying objects, or fall overboard into freezing water. In the 1990s, the Alaskan fishing industry experienced 400 deaths per 100,000 employees. That number has increased since.

  3. Sulfur Miner (East Java, Indonesia)Java’s sulfur miners gather chunks of yellow sulfur located next to a steaming, acidic volcano crater lake. The men hold their breaths and run into the clouds of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, gases that burn the eyes and throat, and grab as much sulfur as they can carry before returning to relative safety away from the lake. The miners gag, choke, and spit before repeating the process again and again. The sulfur they gather is used to bleach sugar, make matches, and vulcanize rubber. The miners are paid $10 to $15 a day, with some extra income coming from posing for photographs taken by curious tourists well away from the poisonous gas. Gloves and gas masks are unaffordable luxury items.
  4. Police Office (Kabul, Afghanistan)
    As recently as December 2011, police officers and police stations in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan, have been targeted by the Taliban soldiers and suicide bombers. CBS News reports that every day, five out of 10 Kabul police officers die on the job. Lack of training and high-tech tools, as well as government-level corruption and an economy based on the heroin trade, prevent Kabul’s police force from performing their job with any degree of safety or effectiveness.

  5. E-Waste Recycler (Guiyu, China)
    Old discarded electronics, including laptops, home entertainment systems, and smart phones, are exported to Guiyu’s electronic waste sites to be gathered and broken down, by hand, for scrap metal by thousands of low-paid workers and their children. The electronics release toxic metals and chemicals into the workers and the environment, poisoning families and their environment. The amount of e-waste on the planet is increasing at an alarming rate, mostly in developing countries, with illegal exporting and dumping contributing to the glut of toxic electronics.

  6. Truck Driver (United States)
    Driving a truck is one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports that truck drivers are “more likely to die in a work-related accident than the average worker,” Continue reading →

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The first time I see my lawyer, what will we talk about?

Today’s post comes from guest author Tom Domer from The Domer Law Firm. If you are coming in to see us for the first time, please feel free to give our office a call ahead of time so we can discuss what materials you will need to bring with you and what you should be ready to talk about with us.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akdXzO0RXUw?rel=0&border=1&color1=004C87]

We find that clients are often worried about what they should prepare before coming to see their attorney for the first time. There is no reason to be afraid or intimidated of this first visit. The first time you see your attorney, the attorney will ask you a number of questions, but, in particular, you should expect to talk about 3 things:
Continue reading →

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