Posts tagged Defective Products

• Depressing Antidepressants Conflicts

  Staff Writer | July 24, 2006 10:35 AM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Doctors from Cardiff University in Wales have revealed that previous studies concerning antidepressants had inflated their safety statistics. Referring to the SSRI drugs (Selective Serotonim Reuptake Inhibitors), the Cardiff Study found that the risks of suicides have been routinely understated while the benefits have been overhyped. In future blogs I will discuss how often researchers fail to...

• Tobacco Class De-Certification Opens Floodgates

  Staff Writer | July 13, 2006 5:16 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Although the Tobacco makers celebrated the Florida Supreme Court ruling which de-certified the Class on which a billion dollar plus punitive damages award was vacated, the underlying jury verdict remains. That means that between 300,000 and 700,000 Plaintiffs who are eligiible to file individual lawsuits against the Tobacco makers can rely on the prior guilty verdict of Deceptive Practices. ...

• Thousands of Heart Devices Recalled

  Staff Writer | June 27, 2006 4:48 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Boston Scientific is recalling 23,000 heart pacemakers and defibrillators and recommended that 27,000 patients who already have their chests consult their physicians. The defect is a faulty electrical component that could cause them to fail. Boston Scientific purchased Guidant in April for $27.5 billion. The company said that it is not ready for outside regulators from the FDA to review...

• Bush Has Dismantled FDA

  Staff Writer | June 27, 2006 3:21 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  A 15-month Congressional inquiry into FDA enforcement of the nation's food and drug laws has found a frighteningly sharp decline over the last five years. The number of warning letters to drug companies, medical device makers and others is down 54% from 2000 to 2005. Enforcement actions was down 65%, despite a wave of problems with devices, including implantable defibrillators and pacemakers. ...

• Playing Fast and Loose With Fast Foods

  Staff Writer | June 26, 2006 1:47 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Do you bellieve Fast Food Restaurants should warn customers that their menu items are fatty? How about the Trans-Fat amounts? The recent lawsuit by the Center for Science in the Public Interest against KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) raises the question of whether the Courts are appropriate places to educate public and teach Fast Food chains a lesson about proper labeling. Consumers do have a...

• Guidant Papers Show Warnings Never Sent to Doctors

  Staff Writer | June 13, 2006 2:29 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Newly released corporate documents show that, last year, Guidant drafted but never sent a detailed document to physicians which would have disclosed significant defects in its heart devices. Instead, executives of the company defended their failure to warn doctors by citing concerns that patients would have been at risk from unnecessary device replacement. The "Dear Doctor" letter was...

• Bone Drug Linked to Jaw Disease

  Staff Writer | June 02, 2006 2:25 PM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  A month after I blogged about Fosamax, the NY Times has run a front page story on the horrible dilemma facing patients with cancer or osteoporosis. The FDA has now required bisphosphonate labels to disclose the serious side effects of death of areas of bone in the jaw, which may occur in one of 10 patients who take the drug. Pharmaceutical companies are defending about 20 suits filed so far by...

• Beware of "Gastric Bypass Pill" Puffing

  Staff Writer | May 31, 2006 3:51 PM | 2 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  Watch out for ads about Zetacap, which is being touted as a gastric bypass pill, far cheaper than surgery. The pill does not require a doctor's prescription because it contains all-natural ingredients which have nothing to do with weight loss. The company who makes Zetacap claims it contains a secret they call "visco-fiber" whic supposedly fills up your stomach, and can transform a person's...

• Tasers Safety Challenged Again

  Staff Writer | May 25, 2006 11:38 AM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  A professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin has conducted a new study which showed that shocks from Tasers cause the hearts of healthy pigs to stop beating. This finding contradicts the previous research financed by, guess who, Taser International. The new study took into account that pigs have a thick layer of muscle insulating their hearts from their skin, so the...

• Merck Spins Vioxx Risks, Again

  Staff Writer | May 24, 2006 11:13 AM | 0 CommentsChicago, IL Category: Defective & Dangerous Products
  

  You can't believe everything you read, even in Medical Journals. Merck deliberately withheld information about three heart attacks from its data when the New England Journal of Medicine reported on VIoxx in March of 2000. Recently, Merck's spin machine is citing new data about patients who stopped using Vioxx after its recall to suggest that it reinforces Merck's argument that only patients...