The Utah Food Bank and Siegfried & Jensen are working together on the 25th Annual Scouting for Food Drive in Utah.

Boy scouts will go door to door on Saturday, March 26th to collect non-perishable canned foods.

Here is a link to the Utah Food Bank’s web-site for more information.  https://www.utahfoodbank.org/scouting

Check out our TV commercial on YouTube!    http://www.youtube.com/embed/M47y-6DiamQ

She was driving north on the freeway towards Bountiful. It was July and still hot in the early evening. The sun wouldn’t set for another couple of hours-it was still 100 degrees outside.  She thought all this and then noticed her car started losing power even though the engine was still running. Was the heat doing this to her car?

She flipped her turn signals on and looked to her right to pull over. There was a car there so she would have to wait until they passed to move over. Her car was still slowing down so she turned on the emergency flashers.

She thought she was safely stopping and moving to the right hand lane, when she felt and heard a boom. A force like nothing she had ever experienced blew into the rear end of the car. She was snapped back into her seat belt. Fear grabbed her then and wouldn’t let go.

Adrenaline, a mother’s adrenaline kicked in. Her daughter, her daughter in the back seat was all she could think about. Fear and fire grabbed her attention. Why was there fire? The back seat, fire everywhere on the right side of the car. The flames were around her little girl. Her child was on fire.

Her daughter was in the back middle seat. She was in a booster seat with her seat belt on. Her clothes were on fire and she was screaming for her mother to help her. She reached from the front to the back seat, through the flames and heat to unsnap the seat belt. The belt was searing hot, but she didn’t know that until later when the burns on her hands were treated.

She pulled her six-year old daughter out of her booster seat into the front seat and out of the car. Her daughter was on fire, her skin was melting and falling off as she carried her to safety and put out the flames. The pain for her daughter was indescribable. She tries not to remember that night. If we go to trial, she will have to remember it all and live it again.

The following days were the longest ever as the University of Utah Hospital’s Burn Center worked to save the child’s life. Later they worked to graft skin and attempt to make her look more like the child she had once been but would never be again.

The sweet voice her child once had is now a raspy whisper. Her voice and lungs damaged from the heat, fire and inhaled flames. Her child arms are covered in thick, unsightly burn scars. Her hands don’t move freely-scar tissue makes her fingers look webbed. It’s hard for her to hold a pencil much less use a key board. What does the future hold for this child?

A plastic safety valve failed in the gas tank when the car was rear-ended by another car on the freeway. Gas fumes escaped and ignited the back seat of the car.

Siegfried and Jensen lawyers are working to assure this child financial freedom from on-going medical care and all future surgeries. This child’s future job choices are now so limited. Wouldn’t it be fair to provide the child with a lifetime annuity to help ease her burden when she is older? Her life has already been so difficult.

She was walking home from Middle School with her best friend.  It was a late September afternoon; her birthday was a few days away. It was still warm enough that she didn’t even need a jacket yet. She still got teased for being such a tom-boy. She hadn’t stopped climbing trees and liked to play sports with her buddies. 

There wasn’t too much wrong with her life at age 14. She and her friend walked close together on the sidewalk kicking leaves and laughing talking about boys in their school.

She remembers her friend turning to look behind them. She remembers noise, loud and close. Then there was a sensation of being pushed-pushed by something heavy. Then her world was blinded by heaviness and pain. Her first single scream had people  running to see what had happened.

She was screaming in pain on the sidewalk and couldn’t move. She looked at her leg and  saw only meat and blood. Her screams continued. She wasn’t sure when she stopped screaming. Maybe it was later in the hospital after she was sedated. The paramedics took care of her and kept her alive and safe until she could be transported to Primary Medical Center. She remembers the sound of the helicopter, knowing it would took her to safety and away from this place where she had lost a limb. There was no way to save her left leg. There was no leg to save. 

I first met her early on when she was at physical rehab, learning to use the prosthetic. It was tough watching her struggle for balance, struggling to use the treadmill. Her left hip trying to do all the work to compensate for a leg that wasn’t there. 

She has made a brave recovery. We have watched her go through all the stages that physical therapists see when people lose limbs and have to start over.

The carelessness of a commercial trucking company took away so much. We are working to get her a fair settlement that will help her for the rest of her life.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greediest of them all?

$14.8 billion in pharmaceutical settlements have been paid out in the last five years!  Over half of those settlements were with just four drug makers: Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Merck.

They do the same bad things over and over. The FDA exacts hefty fines, but the dollar amounts are mere trifles to Big Pharma.

It’s cheaper to pay the fine and continue dishonest business.

Even with millions or even billions owed in settlements, there’s just too much money in it for them to stop. No self-correcting behavior is required or expected. Top management calls the shots. Management want share-holder return at any cost.

Even if the cost is in human lives.

Now, most of these are life-saving drugs. We know that. But wrapped up in that $300 billion spemt annually  are plenty of bad drugs, dangerous drugs and more than enough deceit in their marketing.

Off label marketing is the number one reason these companies are fined by the FDA. Another common violation these drug companies commit is over-charging state government health care programs These companies are injuring us and taking our tax money from Medicaid & Medicare. We talked about this previously with Zyprexa.

Other common reasons for fines include: overcharging public health departments, kickbacks, falsified clinical trial findings, illegal promotions and anti-trust violations.

Kick-backs to doctors is another disturbing reality. But it happens all the time. Doctors are human and many of them take the money and look the other way. It’s all about the money. Big money, billions of dollars worth of money.

$300 Billion dollars is spent annually in the US alone for prescription drugs. Big Pharma is addicted to their profits and just can’t stop. The FDA needs our support to make them.

What did they know and when did they know it?

Just because these drugs; Darvon & Darvocet have been around since the late 1950’s doesn’t mean they’re safe. Because they aren’t.

The consumer safety watchdog group, Public Citizen’s Health Research Group have been lobbying the FDA for years. Their efforts first began in 1978 when they urged the FDA to ban the drugs Darvon & Darvocet on the basis of dangerous side effects to the heart.

Darvon and Darvocet have been banned from use by the Food & Drug Administration. The FDA finally issued a recall in November 2010. Many believe this recall was long overdue.

The drug has been suspected as the reason behind thousands of deaths in the U.S. Many more deaths are suspected as a result of these drugs.

There are ten million Americans using Darvon, Darvocet or generic pain killers all using propoxyphene.  A recent test requested by the FDA demonstrated that the drug alters the heart’s electrical activity. The drugs cause sometimes fatal heart rhythm abnormalities. This drug can harm the heart and has serious side effects. 

There are higher than expected fatality rates in propoxyphene overdoses compared with other painkillers. The FDA has been slow to take action and watch-dog groups are asking the question, why have they been so slow to take action with American lives at stake?

Doctors wrote 23 million prescriptions for propoxyphene-containing drugs last year. A total of 26 different studies over the years have shown that Darvon & Darvocet have offered little more pain relief than just using over the counter acetaminophen (Tylenol).

Folks are urged to contact their doctors if they are taking these pain medications. Do not stop taking the drug immediately; rather ask your doctor to help you switch to other less dangerous methods of pain control.  If you quit this drug suddenly, the risk of withdrawal is serious.

In a news release, Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s health research group, said, “Due to FDA negligence, at least 1,000 to 2,000 or more people in the U.S. have died from using propoxyphene since the time the U.K. ban was announced.”  The drug was banned in Britain in 2005.

In a public statement, the US FDA said, “The drug’s effectiveness in reducing pain is no longer enough to outweigh the drug’s serious potential heart risks.”

We ask ourselves how long the manufacturer has known the drugs were dangerous, and deadly to the American public. Is this another example of a major pharmaceutical company placing profits above people?

If you believe that you or a love one may have been injured as a result of using these drugs, please call us to talk about it. There is no cost for this and we may able to help you receive compensation as a result of having used Darvon, Darvocet or a similar painkiller containing propoxyphene.  Remember, this drug is toxic to your heart.

Call your doctor first, and then call us at:  1 (866) 883-5350

Her face bones were smashed and splintered, her jaw was broken and the extent of her head injuries weren’t immediately known.

Doctors were also charged with saving the life of her unborn child. She was 71/2 months pregnant with her third child when this terrible car accident occurred. There were complications to her surgeries because of her late term pregnancy. Any surgeries, medications and pain relief-the risk to her baby had to be considered.

Nothing could take away her courage in overcoming her injuries and the risk to her unborn child. She did not want to lose her baby.

I read the surgeons report on what was repaired and the equipment used to rebuild her face. At least forty plates were used to rebuild her forehead, not to mention her cheek bones and jaw. The medical team at University Hospital had their work cut out for them. You can only imagine the full cost of her medical bills. They saved her baby and rebuilt her face to look more normal.

She knew that she would never look the same. She simply dismissed any notions of self-pity. She had an attitude of grace that the accident hurt her but left her young sons uninjured. Her face structure was different, but what never changed was her gorgeous, bright, optimistic smile. Nothing could take that away.

We watched her face a difficult recovery with grace and humor. Family and neighbors gave their all to help this young family. The husband was beside himself with worry. Their two young children needed looking after while their mother was in the hospital. Even after leaving the hospital it was difficult for her to care for her family and new baby until she got stronger.

She showed such tenderness towards her children, she was so concerned for their feelings towards her. She looked different and she didn’t want them to be afraid. The hospital provided her with dolls to help explain her massive facial injuries to her children

She is an exceptional wife and wonderful mother to three young children. It was such a pleasure to meet her after spending so much time reading through her file.

It was our privilege to help this family and lift the burden of dealing with her hospital bills and the car insurance company. We wanted both her and her husband to concentrate on her healing and their young family-not on the legal issues surrounding this horrific collision.

We were able to provide this family with fair compensation for her injuries and recovery-for that we are grateful.

Merry Christmas!