It seems that many of the “wonder” cures that have come out into the market are more painful than the disease. You expect some side-effects when taking medication for life-long and complicated diseases such as diabetes, but you certainly don’t expect to develop cancer. But that is exactly what research is saying the incretin mimetic drug Januvia does.

First introduced into the market in 2006 by drug company Merck, it has enjoyed widespread use with average sales of $5 billion annually. This is because, ironically, it has lower degrees of the usual side-effects of anti-diabetic medication such as weight gain and hypoglycemia. Januvia, or sitagliptin generically, acts on the enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4), preventing it from degrading incretin. Incretin is a hormone that encourages the production of insulin when present in the blood.

The problem that Merck is now facing is the good thing-bad thing about DPP4 inhibitors; Januvia keeps incretin in the blood longer, but also keeps DPP4 from doing something else: kill cancer cells. When a 2011 study showed that patients taking Januvia had a 178% higher risk for developing pancreatic cancer and 48% for thyroid cancer, it was too late for some patients. This has led to many complaints filed against Merck, who had allegedly delayed studies that would have revealed these findings earlier. This is the main reason why victims should file a Januvia suit. In early May of 2013, Merck agreed to transfer all personal injury lawsuits involving Januvia and another Merck anti-diabetic oral medication Janumet to California in a special multi-district federal court to expedite the legal process.

If you have been taking Januvia and are currently experiencing severe stomach pains, flu-like symptoms, nausea, headaches and red and blistering skin rashes, consult your doctor at once. If it is confirmed that Januvia is the cause of your problems, you could already be a candidate for pancreatic or thyroid cancer. Contact a lawyer in your area who has experience in handling Januvia lawsuits and get advice on how to get compensation for your current condition.

The family life of an active member of the military is far from ideal. There are frequent moves and deployments as well as long separations, and this puts extra stress on a non-military spouse that can become too much to bear. As it all too frequently happens, the marriage ends in divorce. The Department of Defense puts the divorce rate of military couples at 3.2% in 2011, a significant rise from the 2.6% in 2001.

But even in the dissolution of marriage, there are special features that differentiate civil and military divorce law. In a military divorce, it is entirely acceptable that the petition is filed wherever the service member is currently deployed, the home state, or the official state of residency on record. Because states all have different laws about divorce, it is important that the state where the divorce will be filed have laws that will benefit one or both spouses.

One of the special laws that are state-sensitive and impact on a military divorce is the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA). It is federal statute that requires a military spouse to give part of his or her disposable retirement pay (about 50%) to a non-military spouse. All states except Puerto Rico follow this law, though calculation of the division may vary from state to state. Moreover, California and some other states allow a non-military spouse to immediately benefit from an ex-spouse’s retirement pay even while he or she is still on active duty.

Another military divorce law that is federally-mandated is the Service Member Relief Act or SMRA. It gives a member of the military on active duty the right to place a hold-order on divorce proceedings for 90 days or more while he or she is overseas.  This is to address the problem of appearing for hearings when it is not possible for the service member to be given leave. However, it is not an automatic stay. The service member must apply for this or choose to proceed with the divorce through video or other means of communication.

If a military divorce is being contemplated, it is best for both spouses to engage the services of a lawyer in the area cognizant with military divorce law. This will ensure that the best interests of all concerned are addressed.

Nowadays, it is in fashion to say that times are bad, that you need to keep liquid to stay afloat, and that competition is so stiff that you have to really sacrifice the profit margin to keep old business and get new ones. These trends are particularly true for the small to medium trucking business, which is why freight factoring is such an important option to have.

Freight transportation in the US is primarily accomplished using trucks, which in 2006 hauled nearly 70% of the total freight volume, or revenues in excess of $600 billion.  It sounds that business is good, but these figures are deceptive. With the rising costs of diesel and the growing competition for contracts, many small trucking companies are shaving it close to the bone. More than 900 trucking companies with 5 trucks or more filed for bankruptcy in the January-March period of 2008; the research did not include trucking companies with less than 5 trucks, which would probably make the outlook even more grim.

The biggest problem for small to medium trucking businesses is liquidity. Most trucking contracts require a credit period of 30, 60, or even 90 days, so truckers have to wait for as long as three months or even longer to get their money. In the meantime, rent, utilities, payroll, fuel and other overhead and regular expenses have to be met. Big trucking companies usually have the juice to meet these expenses, but for the independent contractors and smaller companies, it is literally a hand-to-mouth existence.

Freight factoring solves the problem of liquidity by enabling truckers to get the money from jobs as soon as they get a signed invoice instead of waiting a minimum of a month after the job has been done. While there is a fee for this accommodation, the savings on cost of money more than makes up for the difference. If freight factoring is handled correctly, meaning that trucking companies use this option only when needed, it can mean the difference between bankruptcy and continuity.

Many women are filing lawsuits against Pfizer, the makers of the cholesterol management medication Lipitor, claiming that using the drug caused them to develop type 2 diabetes.

Lipitor hit the market in 1997 and has since generated more than $100 billion in sales for the pharmaceutical giant. It is aggressively marketed directly to consumers through television ads prompting them to talk to their doctors about its benefits. However, the risk of diabetes is not clearly stated in the advertisements nor on the label. In 2011, the FDA asked Pfizer to change the wording of the label to better reflect this risk, but the new wording is still confusing.

The lawsuits assert that diabetes is a significant side effect and the risk of developing it should have been disclosed to patients before they were put on Lipitor. They further accuse Pfizer of either hiding this risk or failing in its responsibility to release safe, effective products.

When companies release defective products, they can potentially be held accountable for the injuries they cause. Diabetes is a lifelong disease that causes lifelong expenses. These lawsuits seek compensation from Pfizer to cover these treatment costs as well as other undue hardship brought upon the plaintiffs as a result of this undisclosed side effect.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina dairy company Dairy Fresh has issued a voluntary recall of certain flavors of ice cream after realizing it was shipped in mislabeled containers.

The mislabeled ice cream does not identify potential allergens on the packaging. IGA brand chocolate and vanilla ice creams with sell by dates of August 13th of this year and a plant code of 3783 are affected. Ice cream labeled in this manner may not be the flavor described on the packaging, but rather another flavor that can potentially contain allergens such as soy, almonds, and coconut.

The ice cream was sold in 10 states, including Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the mislabeled ice cream, but individuals with food allergies should be wary of it. So far, the company is aware of only one person who suffered a reaction as a result of its mistake.

In March of this year, the FDA issued a drug safety warning in which they stated that they would be investigating possible pancreatic damage caused by the use of a certain class of Type 2 diabetes drugs called incretin mimetics. One popular drug from this class is Januvia, and some studies have revealed that Januvia and drugs like it could lead to an increased risk of pancreatitis as well as pancreatic duct metaplasia, a pre-cancerous condition affecting the pancreas.

Other drugs named in the FDA drug safety warning that could potentially pose a danger to users include exenatide (Byetta, Bydureon), liraglutide (Victoza), sitagliptin (Janumet, Janumet XR, Juvisync), saxagliptin (Onglyza, Kombiglyze XR), alogliptin (Nesina, Kazano, Oseni), and linagliptin (Tradjenta, Jentadueto).

To read the FDA’s full drug safety warning, click here.

The law is a set of rules and regulations meant to guide the courts in their decision-making. However, since it is open to interpretation, it takes someone with an in-depth knowledge of particular laws to decide whether a particular civil case, such as personal injury lawsuit, has merit and will not be deemed “frivolous.”

Frivolous is defined in law as something that has no legal basis, so a frivolous lawsuit is a case which has no merit in existing law. Oftentimes, we come across news articles describing what may seem like a frivolous lawsuit, but the courts consider it to have merit, and others that may seem like a case with merit which gets thrown out of court. A particularly famous case that became famous because it seemed so mundane and had all the earmarks of a frivolous case was the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit. The average person would think that such a case would be immediately thrown out of court, but in fact the plaintiff, Mrs. Stella Liebeck, was awarded in excess of $500,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. On the other hand, seemingly meritorious cases, especially in medical malpractice, are often thrown out of court because of lack of sufficient evidence.

In the US, those who file civil lawsuits in district courts which are later found to be frivolous by the court may be fined under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. To avoid this, bring your case to an experienced personal injury lawyer for assessment. Under the New Jersey Courts Rules of Professional Conduct, lawyers who knowingly bring or defend a frivolous issue or assertion before the court will be penalized as well, so a personal injury lawyer in new Jersey will not file a case unless there is a legal basis for the claim.

Damaged or injured skin due to burns or surgeries used to be treated through conventional skin grafting, a surgical procedure that involved transplantation of skin from other parts of the patient’s body. When AlloDerm, also known as AlloDerm Regenerative Tissue Matrix, entered the market in 1994, this procedure changed, as the skin needed for the transplant no longer had to come from the same person undergoing the surgery.

AlloDerm is manufactured by LifeCell and is intended for breast reconstruction after mastectomy and for hernia repair treatment (mastectomy is removal of the whole breast, while hernia is a medical condition which happens when an internal organ pushes through weak tissues or muscles which contain or surround it, creating a bulge under the skin). Due to its effectiveness in regenerating the skin, however, AlloDerm also came to be widely used in treating lacerations and severe burns.

The introduction of the surgical mesh AlloDerm as safe and effective alternative to skin grafting, plus its ability to reduce most pain and discomfort caused by hernia, made it the ideal surgical mesh brand. However, complaints of infection, mesh tear or perforation, and abscess formation began to surface from patients on whom AlloDerm was used between 2007 and 2009.

Among the various complications caused by AlloDerm, abscesses are one of the most dangerous, especially if they grow inside the body after a hernia-repair surgery. An abscess forms when a surgical site gets infected; it is actually nothing more than pus, a yellow, whitish-yellow, or yellow-brown fluid which is an accumulation of white blood cells, bacteria, dead tissue and fluid.

An abscess that develops on the skin is characterized by a swollen, red area that feels warm and is extremely painful. If not treated, it can cause chills, fever, fatigue, nausea, and, in severe instances, death. The risk due to abscess increases if it grows inside the body, as it will be very difficult to detect and treat.

If you or anyone in your family is suffering from abscess due to AlloDerm, you may be entitled to pursue compensation through an AlloDerm lawsuit for the damages you have suffered.