medical device safety News

J&J Begins Settling Pinnacle Hip Defect Lawsuits

Johnson & Johnson has begun settling consumers’ claims that it sold artificial hips knowing they were defective, marking the first settlements in the seven-year-old litigation. A federal judge in Texas overseeing the cases said about 3,300 of 10,000 “have settled …

FDA Plans to Overhaul Medical Device Approval System

US health officials said Monday they plan to overhaul the nation’s decades-old system for approving most medical devices, which has long been criticized by experts for failing to catch problems with risky implants and medical instruments. The Food and Drug …

Spinal-Cord Stimulators Present Problems for Some Patients

Desperate for relief after years of agony, Jim Taft listened intently as his pain management doctor described a medical device that could change his life. It wouldn’t fix the nerve damage in his mangled right arm, Taft and his wife …

Forgoing Recalls, Med Device Firms Sometimes Use Doctors to Screen for Defects

Results of a new behavioral study into what influences the decision to recall a defective product found that medical device firm managers may rely on their physician-customers to screen out detectable defects, in lieu of issuing a recall. The study …

U.S. Regulators Consider Ideas for Boosting Medical Device Safety

U.S. health officials on Tuesday proposed steps to improve the government’s system for overseeing medical devices, which has been criticized for years for failing to catch problems with risky implants and medical instruments. The plan from the Food and Drug …

Report Says FDA Fails in Ensuring Safety of Medical Devices

America’s system for ensuring that medical devices are safe failed at every turn when dirty endoscopes began spreading deadly superbugs, according to a Senate investigation released today. The report, from Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, blames device manufacturers, hospitals, …

J&J Readies for Trial Over Hip Implants Blamed for Poisoning Patients

Johnson & Johnson, which set aside $2.5 billion last year to resolve claims that 8,000 of its artificial hips were defective, faces a new round of lawsuits over another line of hip implants blamed for poisoning patients. J&J’s DePuy unit …

UK Study Prompts Call for Wider Ban on Metal Hips

New research confirmed that all-metal artificial hips fail more often than other types, fueling concerns about the devices and prompting a call from researchers this week for a ban. The analysis in The Lancet medical journal came two weeks after …

Consumer Reports Taps Ire Over Faulty Medical Devices

Consumer Reports, the 76-year-old publication best known for its reviews of automobiles and refrigerators, is trying to galvanize the American public into protesting the way medical devices are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The past couple of …