Year after year, Texas leads the nation in traffic fatalities due to drunk driving. Add to that the still-growing spike in fatal crashes due to the energy boom, and Texans have good reason to think carefully about staying safe on the road this holiday season. Auto accidents can be financially, emotionally and physically devastating, especially…

An electrical stimulation implant has helped four paralyzed men regain the ability to move their legs.  The device, called an epidural spine stimulator, was implanted in the men as part of a study undertaken by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Louisville. One of the patients in the study, Kent…

A brain injury expert from Boston University is speaking out for players he feels have been unfairly excluded from a settlement deal in the class action lawsuit against the NFL over the health effects of play-related brain injury. Robert Stern filed an affidavit with the court and then took his story to the press, telling…

A mistrial has been declared in a federal lawsuit which alleges that some highway guardrails across the country pose a deadly risk to drivers. The lawsuit was filed by a whistleblower alleging that guardrails produced by Trinity Industries, a Texas-based guardrail manufacturer, are malfunctioning and killing drivers. The lawsuit further charges that the guardrail defect…

A new report on fatalities from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that Texas is one of the most dangerous states for pedestrians.   In 2012, the rate of pedestrian fatalities in Texas was 1.83 per 100,000 population — meaning that nearly two out of every 100,000 Texans were struck and killed by…

Preventable medical complications acquired at the hospital have become all too familiar in American life. In Texas, the truth about complications is, well, even more complicated.  In Maine, a high-performing state, most hospitals – more than 70 percent – perform at the highest levels of safety. But in Texas, only 28 percent of hospitals perform…