Rule Ban Children From Riding ATV's

The Off-highway Vehicles Act bans children under 14 from riding ATVs anywhere except on a closed course.

ATV's Pose Risk of Serious Injury to Children:
ATV's have become very popular in the last few years and as their use has increased, the number of serious injuires to children as a result of ATV accidents has sky-rocketed. There has been a call from medical professionals to ban children under age 16 from riding ATV's.

The Canadian Paediatric Society has stated that ATV drivers should be 16 or over, suggesting younger children are not developmentally ready to drive these vehicles.

There have been numerous reports in media about how dangerous ATV's are for young children. See for example: ATVs: Too Dangerous For Kids, Capital Health concerned about rise in ATV injuries

The Facts:

Sales of ATVs more than tripled between 1995 and 2003, rising from about 26,000 units to 94,000 units.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information reports the number of ATV-related hospitalizations increased by almost 50% in five years, from 1,693 in 1996/1997 to 2,535 in 2000/2001.

Children between the ages of 5 and 19 accounted for 36% of all ATV-related injuries.

Of the 92 ATV-related severe injury admissions in 2000/2001 where blood alcohol concentration was recorded, 26% tested positive.

Injuries from ATV-related activities are now the second most common cause of severe injuries in sports and recreation, after cycling.

Province Plans to Train 6 Year Olds to Ride ATV's:

Last week the province's Department of Health Promotion and Protection announced the government was spending $230,000.00 on 66 ATVs so that children as young as six could be trained to ride the vehicles.

Children's Hospital Says Plan May Increase Injuries:

Nova Scotia's Children's Hospital was critical of the plan. Dr. Robin Walker, vice-president of medicine at the IWK Health Centre, said that the training could actually lead to an increase in injuries:

"If this program leads to children more frequently operating ATVs because then their parents think that they're now trained to do so, this program could actually increase the number of children injured and killed," Walker said.

Premier Supports Plan:

Premier Rodney MacDonald supported the plan when it was announced last week. "If it's an investment in safety for our young people," he said at the time, "the government's willing to make it."

Premier Makes a U-Turn on ATV's:

But today Rodney MacDonald has decided he doesn't like the plan after all and he wants his money back. CBC news has reported that MacDonald is demanding the return of the $230,000.00 although he didn't have any details on how that was actually going to happen.

Leaving aside the debate about whether it was a good idea to use public money to train young children to ride ATV's (it wasn't!) the real question in my mind is whether children under the age of 16 should be driving ATV's AT ALL!

ATV's are a motor vehicle, just like a car or a motor cycle. Everyone accepts that one has to be mature enough to drive a car or motor cycle. Children cannot be licensed to drive motor vehicles until they are 16 and then there is a graduated license program to ensure that young drivers can gain the experience they need before getting an unrestricted license.

I have represented many families of children who have been seriously injured as a result of ATV accident's and I have come to the conclusion that children under age 16 simply should not be driving ATV's. Not on closed course. Not with training. NEVER.

What do you think?

Both 6-OXO and 1-AD are manufactured by ErgoPharm-Proviant Technologies and are popular among amateur and professional bodybuilders.

CTV news reports that Health Canada has received one report of a serious adverse event that has been linked to use of the supplements. According to the report, a man who had no known health problems suffered seizures and blood clots in his brain after using the supplements.

6-OXO is not approved for sale in Canada, but consumers can buy the supplement over the internet or while travelling in the United States.

1-AD contains an anabolic steroid. That means the supplement is a controlled substance in Canada and can only be purchased by prescription and is supposed to be used only under the supervision of a doctor.

If you are using either of these supplements, you should seek advice from a doctor immediately.

The event went off without a hitch and I wanted to offer my congratulations to BIANS and their volunteers for making the day a great success.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, June is Brain Injury Awareness Month in Nova Scotia.

Brain Injury is one of the leading causes of injury and death in children. As our weather improves (finally) more children are going to be out riding their bikes, scooters and skateboards. Unfortunately, some of them are going to suffer a brain injury as a result of not wearing proper protective gear.

I am posting this public service announcement from the Virginia Emergency medical Services as a reminder for parents to ensure that your kids wear proper safety gear when they are out having fun.

Have a great...and safe...summer!

In 2003 Nova Scotia passed the Automobile Insurance Reform Act (AIRA) to protect the profits of the insurance industry at the expense of innocent accident victims.

"Minor Injury" Cap on Compensation

AIRA caps the amount of compensation that an accident victim can receive for non-pecuniary damages , (what is typically referred to as compensation for pain and suffering), for "minor injuries" at a maximum of $2500.00!

In other words, if you have a "minor injury", as defined by the AIRA law, the most you can receive for your pain and suffering is $2500.00. In many cases the insurance company will offer you less than $2500.00!

Why you may have a "Minor Injury": Reason #2 :

If your injury "resolved" within 12 months of your car accident, it will be considered a "minor injury".

The AIRA law defines a minor injury as any injury that:

...resolves within twelve months following the accident.

What Does Resolves Mean?

Now you and I know what resolves means; it means you are better! If you aren’t better in one year your injury has not “resolved” and you are entitled to more than $2500.00 in compensation. Right?

Wrong! As if things weren’t complicated enough, in an effort to:

Limit the ability of innocent car accident victims to get compensation for their injuries; and

Increase insurance company profits,

the government of Nova Scotia created regulations “defining” what the word “resolves” means.

According to the Minor Injury cap law, "resolves" means...

…does not cause or ceases to cause a serious impairment of an important bodily function which results from a continuing injury of a physical nature to produce substantial interference with the person’s ability to perform their usual daily activities or their regular employment…

In other words, if you are in a car accident and spend 6 months in a body cast and then 5 1/2 months in painful rehabilitation, but you pretty much fully recover within a year, you may be considered to have a minor injury. Your claim for pain and suffering may be capped at $2500.00.

"How Do I Prove My Injury Hasn't Resolved?"

In order to prove that you do NOT have a minor injury you must provide proof that your injury did not "resolve" within 12 months. How do you do that? By having your doctor carefully document the nature and extent of the ongoing effects of your injuries so that he or she can write a report confirming that you have a "serious impairment" that is "physical in nature" and continues to cause "substantial interference" with your "usual daily activities" or your "regular employment".

I will cover all of these requirements in future posts. The most important thing to remember is that just because the insurance company says you have a minor injury does mean that they are correct.

The minor injury cap law is complicated and confusing, even to some lawyers. If you or a family member have been injured in a car accident, make sure you get advice from an experienced Nova Scotia car accident claims lawyer.

Related posts:

Why the Insurance Company Says you have a "Minor Injury": Reason #1

However, a study led by researchers at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have found that the practice may be dangerous for children with brain injuries.

The study, involved 225 children at 17 centres in Canada, France and the United Kingdom. There was no difference in how the patients in each group recovered neurologically.

However the study found more deaths among the children who had been cooled - 23 versus 14 in the group not treated using hypothermia.

Dr. Jamie Hutchison, director of critical care research at Sick Kids and one of the lead investigators in the study said:

"We were very surprised by these findings, since preliminary research in adults with traumatic brain injury had demonstrated the potential benefit of hypothermia therapy..."

Traumatic brain injury is the number one cause of injury and death among children in Canada.

This one of my favourite public service messages from the Brain Injury Association. I love the way it gets the message across with humour without losing the point.

For more information about brain injury check out the website of BIANS, the Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia.

I will be taking part in BIANS's annual charity golf tournament on June 16 at Brightwood golf course. I hope to see you there!

In 2003 Nova Scotia passed the Automobile Insurance Reform Act (AIRA) to protect the profits of the insurance industry at the expense of innocent accident victims.

"Minor Injury" Cap on Compensation

AIRA limits (or caps) the amount of damages that an accident victim can receive for non-pecuniary damages , what is typically referred to as compensation for pain and suffering, for "minor injuries" to a maximum of $2500.00!

In other words, if you have a minor injury, as defined by the AIRA law, the most compensation you can receive for your pain and suffering is $2500.00.

There are many reasons why the insurance company may claim that you have a minor injury.

Reason # 1

Your injury isn't "permanent"

The AIRA law defines a minor injury as every injury that does NOT result in a:

...permanent serious impairment of an important bodily function...

So the first reason the insurance company may say that you have a "minor injury" is because your injury isn't permanent.

That covers a lot of injuries. Think about it: bruises go away, torn muscles repair themselves, broken bones heal. There are few injuries that last forever.

Does Permanent Mean Forever?

In some cases (amputations) it may be obvious that the injury will last forever. But for most injuries the only way to know for sure that your injury is/was permanent is to wait until you die. If you still had the injury when you died, then the injury was truly permanent.

So does that mean you have to wait until you die before you can prove your injury is permanent?

Fortunately that isn't the case.

Various court decisions have considered what the definition of the word permanent means when it comes to personal injury claims.

A victims injuries will be considered to be permanent where there is a “substantial possibility” that the injury will continue into the future: Skinner v. Goulet.

"Permanent" means lasting into the indefinite future without any end limit: Bos v. James

How Do I Prove My Injury Is Permanent?

So the first thing you have to do to prove that you do NOT have a minor injury if provide proof that your injury is "permanent". How do you do that? By having your doctor carefully document the nature and extent of your injuries so that he or she can write a report confirming that there is a "substantial possibility" that your injury will continue into the "indefinite future" without any certain end limit.

There are a number of other reasons that the insurance company may say you have a minor injury, and claim that your compensation should be capped at a maximum of $2500.00. I will cover them all in future posts.

Now tests conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail on cans for several popular children’s foods shows similar or higher levels of bisphenol A than in baby bottles.

Baby bottles were found to leach about 6 parts per billion of BPA. The new test results showed higher concentrations of the dangerous substance in some popular children’s food containers.

Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup: 8.61 (Parts per billion)
Heinz Tomato Juice: 14.11
Allen’s Apple Juice: 17.9
Hunt’s Tomato Sauce: A whopping 18.21 parts per billion!

For those of you that think just children are at risk, the chemical was also found in Molson beer cans 8.19 and Labatt beer cans 9.27.

The scary part is that these results are likely low:

"The tests we did in the cans are fairly conservative," said Julia Taylor, the lab technician that conducted the tests. "We used water, which is less likely to pull out BPA in a can."

My boys love Campbell's chicken noodle soup. What do you eat when you have a cold or aren't feeling well? Chicken noodle soup. Is there any product out there that has a reputation for being healthier than chicken noodle soup?

I guess now I'm going to have to dig out my grandmothers recipe for home made chicken noodle soup. Yum!

Safe Kids Canada has released a research report this week that showed that residential streets may be more dangerous for our children that we think. According to the study, which was released this week a child hit by a car travelling at 50 km/h has an 80 per cent chance of being killed!

Thousands of Children Injured or Killed in Pedestrian Accidents:

Child - pedestrian accidents are a leading cause of death for Canadian children. More than 2,000 children are seriously injured each year in child pedestrian accidents each year! Sadly, almost 30 children are killed in pedestrian accidents every year.

Intersections Dangerous:

Most child pedestrian accidents happen while the child was crossing the street in an intersection.

Injuries Happen Close to Home:

It may come as some surprise that many of these serious injuries and deaths happen within just 5 kilometres of the children’s home.

Slow Down and Save Lives:

The study found that reducing vehicle speed results in a huge decrease in the number of child injuries and fatalities. A child hit by a car traveling at 30 km/h, has up to a 95 per cent chance of surviving.

The report calls for legislation reducing speed limits in residential neighbourhoods to a maximum of 30 KM (from the current 50 KM).

As a personal injury lawyer for the past 18 years I have represented hundreds of children who have been seriously injured in car-pedestrian accidents. Even more tragic are the cases where a child has been killed by a driver who was speeding, or just not paying attention.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in child safety to send a copy of the Safe Kids Canada news release to their local MLA.

...tragedies like the tainted blood scandal and cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease -- the human form of mad cow disease -- linked to reuse of tools used in brain surgery have deepened the understanding of infection risks and raised the bar for infection control in hospitals.

The story reports that while there appears to be consensus among health care professionals that a national policy is needed and that the practice of in-house reprocessing ought to be banned, a regulatory void means that in many parts of the country hospitals can do as they wish when it comes to reuse of single-use medical devices.

Saving Money vs. Patient Safety:

The cost of health care has become so astronomical that hospitals have been forced to find any way they can to save money. Some would say by cutting corners at the expense of patient safety.

The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) is a national body that provides Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial health care decision makers with impartial advice and evidence-based information about the effectiveness and efficiency of drugs and other health technologies.

Reuse Poses Legal Liability Issues:

CADTH has produced a series of reports on reprocessing of SUDs that address concerns about possible risks to patients of infection or other complications, legal liability issues, and uncertainties regarding cost-effectiveness.

CADTH concluded that there is:

"Insufficient evidence to establish safety and effectiveness "of reusing SUDs.

Reuse Endangers Patient Safety: United States:

Almost three years ago the Washington Post published a story about the dangers of reusing SUDs. The report documented dozens of cases of patient injuries and device malfunctions after single-use devices were reused.

Government Investigates Health Risks:

The practice has become so widespread that the United States Government Accountability Office prepared a report on the issue. The title of the report concludes that FDA has increased its regulation of the reprocessing of SUMDs and "available information does not indicate that use presents an elevated health risk".

But on the very first page of the report the authors state:

Neither existing FDA data nor studies performed by others are sufficient to draw definitive conclusions about the safety of reprocessed SUDs compared to similar original devices.

How comforting.

When the announcement was made this week about the presence of asbestos in the jail, Justice Minister Cecil Clarke said all proper procedures had been followed.

"When issues come forward we respond to those and follow the prescribed procedures and policies in place and that's been done," said Clarke.

But yesterday afternoon the union that represents the guards released a document which indicates the government had been aware of asbestos insulation in some provincial institutions as early as 1988!

"It clearly stated that there was asbestos within the heating system of the correctional facility, particularly around the elbows and joints, which are the areas of concern at present day," said union local president Jim Gosse.

The province's code of practice on "Managing Asbestos in Buildings" requires that employees be notified immediately once asbestos is detected in a building.

The Canadian Press has reported that the guards' union maintains that it wasn't informed about the asbestos until it requested a meeting with jail officials on May 14. The meeting was held the next day.

The province knew about the asbestos in the Cape Breton Correctional Facility in 1988. The province's code of practice requires that employees be notified immediately about the presence of asbestos. The guards were not notified until May 14, 2008. Twenty years later!

What were they waiting for?

The province of Nova Scotia has released air quality test results at the prison which show:

"The reported values were well below the acceptable criteria of 0.1 fibres per cubic centimetre"

Guards and inmates are concerned because exposure to asbestos can cause mesothelioma a deadly form of cancer.

The problem, according to the National Cancer Institute, is that:

"Symptoms of mesothelioma may not appear until 30 to 50 years after exposure to asbestos."

Exposure to asbestos also increases the risk of lung cancer, asbestosis (a noncancerous, chronic lung ailment), and other cancers, such as those of the larynx and kidney.

The province says that exposure levels are "acceptable". The problem with this statement is that there is no scientific evidence to prove that asbestos exposure is safe at any level!

You have to ask yourself what the reaction would be if Nova Scotia's M.L.A.'s found out that there was asbestos in the air in the Legislature. Would they consider any level of asbestos exposure to be "acceptable"?

What do you think?

The Canadian Press has reported that a recent Canadian study called the BART trial compared Trasylol to two far cheaper alternatives found that patients who received Trasylol were 53 per cent more likely to die than people who received the other anti-bleeding agents, tranexamic acid or aminocaproic acid.

Dr. Paul Hebert, a critical care doctor at the Ottawa Health Research Institute and one of the investigators in the study, was quoted as saying that:

"The risks of aprotinin are greater than its benefits,"

Dr. David Mazer, a cardiovascular anesthesiologist and critical care physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and one of the lead researchers in the BART trial said:

"The BART study has changed the way heart surgery will be done in Canada and around the world,"

I have posted about the risks surrounding Trasylol before. According to an investigation by CBS's 60 Minutes, Bayer, the manufacturer of Trasylol knew about dangers associated with the drug in 2006 but failed to advise the FDA and Health Canada.

You can watch the whole 60 Minutes story here.

The Canadian Press reported that vinyl acetate is one of 17 substances Health Canada could recommend be deemed toxic in a draft report to be published Saturday.

There has been no link demonstrated between vinyl acetate and cancer in humans.

Many major chewing gum manufacturers were quick to point out that their products do not contain vinyl acetate.

I don't smoke and now it looks like I have to stop chewing gum. If they find out that coffee causes cancer I am in big trouble.

MTBI claims are among the most difficult of personal injury claims to prove. By definition, imaging studies (MRI, CT scan, X-ray) are normal. Often there is no loss of consciousness and sometimes the victim has not even suffered a blow to the head.

The effects of MTBI are subtle. It can be difficult to convince a jury that someone who looks so "normal" has suffered a debilitating injury.

If you are looking for more information about MTBI claims, I highly recommend the Traumatic Brain Injury blog by my collegue Bruce Stern. You can take a look here.

You can also find more information at the Brain Injury Association of Canada.

If you are looking for a Halifax personal injury lawyer you can check out our website.