01.01.70
WASHINGTON D.C. - A man from Washington D.C. is suing Wisconsin's Triad Group for over $10-million dollars. William Preston West Jr. said he received a Bacillus-cereus infection from using Triad's alcohol pads while being treated for multiple sclerosis.
West said he needed several surgeries -- and he had to go for two months without taking any medicines for his MS. The suit calls for five-million-dollars in punitive damages, plus a million-dollars for his wife Carolyn. Triad, of Hartland, refuses comment on the lawsuit. It previously denied any connection between its alcohol wipes and 11 deaths the government says those products have caused. Triad and its H&P factory were shut down in April, when U.S. Marshals seized over six-million dollars worth of products. A federal consent decree in June spelled out conditions Triad must meet to re-open the plant. It remains closed.
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We'll find out next week how Assembly Republicans would ease the requirements to get state mining permits. Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) said majority Republicans will unveil their proposals at a news conference next week. A committee will then hold a public hearing on it in Milwaukee. And Fitzgerald said the Assembly would most likely vote on the measure sometime in January. It can take years for mining companies to get state permits for their projects. And at least some Democrats agree the process can be speeded up, as long as environmental concerns don't get the short shrift. Gogebic Taconite is waiting for a faster state process before it goes ahead with plans for what would be the largest mine in state history -- a one-and-a-half billion dollar iron ore mine in Ashland and Iron counties. An Assembly committee held a hearing there a few weeks ago. The Bad River Indian tribe opposed the mine due to its possible effects on water quality. But some local government leaders supported the project, saying it would bring back many of the jobs that have been lost in far northern Wisconsin in recent years.
Source: Pierce County Herald