The agency is warning that benzocaine, which is in most popular teething medications, can have dangerous health effects.  Benzocaine is a painkiller, but according to the agency, it has also been associated with a rare, but potentially serious condition called methemoglobinemia.  In this condition, there’s a vastly reduced supply of oxygen carried through the bloodstream.  In very severe cases, infants may be at risk of death.

In the US, benzocaine is available in liquid and gel form, under the names Orajel, Baby Orajel, Anbesol and other brands.  It is also available in spray form and as lozenges.  These are typically used to treat teething pain.  However, these drugs are also used by adults to treat canker sores and relieve gum irritation.

However, the agency is warning that methemoglobinemia has been linked to benzocaine at varying levels.  Even teething products containing 7.5% concentration of benzocaine has been linked to the fatal condition.  Most of these cases involved children under the age of two.  According to the Food and Drug Administration, parents must watch out for the following symptoms

• Fatigue
• Confusion
• Shortness of breath
• Gray color for skin
• Rapid heart rate
• Blueness of the nails or lips
• Headache

Typically, these symptoms appear within hours or even minutes of using benzocaine.  Even a single dose of the product is enough for symptoms to turn up.

Even adults who use gels and lotions containing benzocaine must follow precautions.  Use the recommendations on the label of the product.  Keep the product out of reach of children. Avoid using these products frequently.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 ordered the Consumer Product Safety Commission to develop new standards for a variety of children’s products, including cribs and toddler beds.  The agency has already set new standards for crib safety, announcing a ban on drop side cribs, and has also turned its attention to other children’s products, including infant carriers.  This week, the agency announced new standards for toddler’s beds.

There have been several reports of injuries and deaths involving toddler beds.  According to the CPSC, it is aware of at least 122 incidents that occurred between 2005 and 2010.  Out of these, four children died, and 43 children were injured from these toddler beds.

The CPSC’s new standards mandate that the upper edge of the guardrail be at least 5 inches above the mattress of the bed, and that the spindle and slat stress testing standards for toddler beds be consistent with current testing requirements.  These guidelines also mandate that manufacturers include warning labels that caution parents about the risks of entrapment and strangulation hazards from toddler beds.

The CPSC has been investing more attention towards sleeping environment safety over the past few months.  One of the first major steps that the CPSC took to help children sleep safely was a ban on drop side cribs announced in December.  These cribs have been traced to several reports of strangulation, suffocation as well as some fall incidents.

In fact, most car seats that are approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are only tested for effectiveness in preventing injuries during front impact accidents.  Most serious injuries in accidents every year involve rollover accidents and side impact crashes.  Besides, whiplash and serious spinal cord injuries can result from rear end accidents.  Children, who are strapped into car seats, may be at a special risk of injuries during a rear end accident.  However, the NHTSA does not test the effectiveness of car seats in these accidents.

Moreover, the NHTSA does not have crash test dummies to test the effectiveness of car seats that are designed for children who are above 65 pounds in weight.  Some children may reach 40 pounds by the end of 2 ½ years, and increasingly Houston injury attorneys are coming across children who are overweight.  Parents of such children need large-size car seats, but the NHTSA has no proper testing procedures for these car seats.  These children are too big for normal sized car seats, and too young to be secured by seatbelts.

What is even worse is that the NHTSA has been developing a plus-sized crash test dummy for children at least since 2002.  There is no word from the agency about when this test dummy will be ready.  In the meantime, parents need to be vigilant about the kind of car seats they buy for their children.  Look up rankings by safety organizations like Consumer Reports, which do their own testing for car seats and booster seats.

According to the report, children’s product recalls accounted for 45% of the total number of recalls last year, or a total of 160 products.  Out of these, nursery products were the most often recalled products accounting for 29% of recalls.  These products also seemed to involve the most number of injuries before a recall.  There were five products that had more than 100 reported incidents of injuries and other adverse incidents before the recall.  Out of these, four involved nursery products.

The largest recall in 2010 was the recall of 12 million McDonald’s drinking glasses recall because of cadmium content in the glasses.  There were also a number of recalls related to children’s sleep environment-related products, including cribs and beds.  The kind of penalties that the Consumer Product Safety Commission levied on manufacturers of products for safety violations last year was quite meager, and amounted to just $2.7 million.

However, the CPSC did take a few other steps to warn parents about possibly dangerous products.  For instance, the CPSC did warn parents against using bag-style infant slings.  These slings have become very fashionable in recent years, but have been traced to several incidents of infant suffocation deaths.  The CPSC also warned consumers about the use of sleep positioners.  The biggest accomplishment of the CPSC last year was the announcement of a federal consumer product safety database that parents can refer to when they want to look up complaints about specific children’s products.  However, there is more that the CPSC can do, including reviewing crib bumper pads that have been linked to at least two fatalities last year.

The day care operator, 22-year-old Jessica Tata has since fled the country to Nigeria.  She has already been charged with reckless injury to a child, and three new charges of abandoning a child have been added to that list.  The tragedy occurred on 24 February at a day care located out of a home in west Houston.

By all accounts, Tata left the children in her care alone, and went out grocery shopping.  There were seven children alone in the home at the time.  Indications are that she had left something cooking on the stove, which caused the fire.  When the doctor came back home, the house was in flames, with the children inside.  Four of the children died, and three more have suffered serious injuries.

After the fire, Tata told neighbors that the fire had broken out while she was in the bathroom.  However, surveillance videos from a nearby Target store told a different story.  She was spotted shopping there while the fire was raging in her home.  Tata had been operating the day care with seven children, when she was only licensed to have a maximum of six kids in her care.

Meanwhile, there has been much criticism about the way authorities have handled this terrible tragedy.  According to Houston Fire Department investigators, they had to visit prosecutors at least six times before charges could be filed against Tata.  The Houston Fire Department also had a tip that Tata could possibly flee the country back to Nigeria, and yet, when they brought this to the attention of prosecutors, they believed that the information wasn’t sufficient to take action.

Earlier this year, Triad Group announced a recall of millions of alcohol pads, because of the risk of bacterial infection.  The company downplayed the risks of infection, by saying that it had received just one report of a skin infection related to the alcohol wipes.  It was only when the recall was announced that Harrison’s parents realized that the infection was possibly linked to the wipes.

Now, MSNBC has obtained documents from the Food and Drug Administration which show that the agency was aware of contamination and sterility problems at the Triad Medical Group facility in Wisconsin.  According to inspection reports, procedures to prevent contamination of products were not being followed at the facility.  However, the FDFA failed to send out warning letters to the company.  Typically, the FDA warns companies about safety problems, and forces them to comply with regulations.  That did not happen in this case.

Since Harrison’s parents filed the lawsuit, many patients from other states have stepped forward to claim that their injuries and illnesses were caused by the contaminated pads.  Houston product liability attorneys are possibly looking at just the tip of the iceberg here, as more people understand that their infections were caused by the contaminated pads.

A final estimate about the death toll last year can be arrived at only after we have the total numbers for 2010. However, Houston injury lawyers fear that those pedestrian accident deaths will be higher when the final numbers are in, because most of the deadliest days for pedestrians are during the latter half of the year. The two months of summer see more pedestrian accident fatalities in Texas, with children and adults enjoying the lovely weather outside. Besides, the second half of the year also sees deadly holidays like Halloween, widely regarded as the deadliest year of the year for pedestrians. A child’s risk of being killed in an accident increases dramatically over the Halloween holiday, with more children trick or treating in the dark.

And we’ve not yet touched upon the frenetic pedestrian activity in the days leading up to the Christmas celebrations. Shoppers busy with last-minute shopping may be at a higher risk of being involved in an accident. When all the statistics are taken into consideration, the final pedestrian death numbers last year may be higher than the previous year, the first time in 4 years that this has happened.

So what was so special about 2010 that caused an increase in pedestrian accident deaths? It’s hard to tell with certainty right now, but the NHTSA seems to place much of the onus for this on pedestrians themselves. The agency believes that pedestrians now are more distracted, and less focused on the roads, leading to accidents.

The study, which has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, studied 200 popular over-the-counter liquid children’s medications. The researchers analyzed cough, cold, stomach and allergy drugs, as well as painkillers. They found that out of the 200 medications, approximately 25% did not come with a measuring device.

The ones that did come with a device had at least one inconsistency in the measurements. Some of the medications came with measuring devices that simply did not match the dosage specifications. Such a mismatch can be dangerous, because when parents don’t find the correct measurement device for the medication, they use teaspoons to give the dosage. That increases the risk of an overdose, because teaspoons are not designed to deliver medications accurately.

At least one of the medications that the researchers analyzed had a dosage measured in teaspoons, but came with a marking device that was marked in milliliters. Such errors can be dangerous because they cause needless confusion among parents.

The researchers have been concerned enough about these differences in the dosage instructions and the device supplied, to call for greater care by parents. If you don’t understand the dosage, ask your doctor or pharmacist. If your doctor has prescribed a 5-ml dosage, and the medication comes with a teaspoon, contact the doctor for his advice. Better still, use a syringe to deliver medication. These are perfectly and accurately marked, and the risk of a wrong dose or an overdose is negligible.

Pharmaceutical companies must also make sure that their children’s medications come with correct measuring devices to reduce the risk of injury. An overdose of paracetamol, for instance, can cause liver injuries if parents are not aware of the right ways to deliver the dosage.

In June, the agency had voted to ban the manufacture, distribution and sale of these cribs. This week, the agency announced an all-out ban on these cribs. As Houston injury attorneys and parents ourselves, we had been awaiting a final decision by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and it is now here. There’s no doubt that this ban is a victory, but the fact is that many homes still continue to have these cribs. It’s very important for parents to understand that these cribs are extremely dangerous.

Besides, dozens of these cribs still exist in day care centers across Houston and Texas.  Obviously, for many of the smaller privately-run day care centers, replacing these cribs is going to be an additional expense. However, it is an expense that they must budget for. There have been simply far too many instances of crib sides creating a dangerous gap into which infants have fallen, or become trapped in. These cribs have made it easier for parents to reach a baby simply by sliding down the drop side. However, constant moving of the drop side can cause the plastic hardware to break, causing the drop side to separate from the body of the crib. This creates a dangerous gap that poses serious suffocation/entrapment/strangulation hazards.

We would encourage all Houston parents to discard their drop side cribs immediately. The ban on these cribs has already come far too late for the 32 babies who have been confirmed killed in suffocation/entrapment/strangulation accidents involving these cribs.

As Houston car accident attorneys, we often come across patients who have suffered a brain injury in an accident or fall. Brain injuries are some of the most life altering injuries, because they have repercussions that go beyond the physical limitations. A person with a brain injury may have his powers of concentration affected. He may suffer from a much lower attention span. There may be behavioral changes. Sometimes, these changes may be dramatic. All of these can have a profound impact on a person’s emotional and mental well-being. A brain injury can cause behavioral changes, which if not treated properly, can lead to the development of antisocial behavior or susceptibility to criminal tendencies.

What the study does show is that brain injuries in children must be taken seriously. This is true even if the child has suffered a minor concussion, which leads to a momentary lapse of consciousness. A child with a brain injury must be given access to neuropsychiatric treatment, and must be monitored carefully over the next few years. Look for falling grades, disinterest in studies, or aggressiveness at school. These could be effects of the injury.