The Cybersecurity 202: Medical devices are woefully insecure. These hospitals and manufacturers want to fix that

Medical devices -- such as pacemakers, insulin pumps and MRI machines -- are increasingly vulnerable to hacking. As of today, however, there’s no federal mandate for those devices to have cybersecurity protections.

A government-backed coalition of hospitals and medical device manufacturers took matters into their own hands on Monday. They released a 53-page “joint security...

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More blood pressure drugs may have shortages after recalls: FDA

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Additional shortages of blood pressure drugs in the United States are possible following recent recalls related to traces of a probable carcinogen found in some versions a particular class of hypertension medicines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.

The drugs, including valsartan, belong to a class of widely-used...

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FDA: Another blood pressure drug, irbesartan, recalled over cancer-causing impurity

A drug company on Friday announced the recall of eight more lots of irbesartan blood pressure medication after testing revealed the drugs contained trace amounts of a carcinogen.

Prinston Pharmaceuticals recalled one lot of irbesartan tablets and seven lots of irbesartan HCTZ tablets. The medication contained unacceptable levels of the probable carcinogen nitrosodiethylamine, or NDEA,...

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Risk of Death Following Application of Paclitaxel‐Coated Balloons and Stents in the Femoropopliteal Artery of the Leg: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

AbstractBackgroundSeveral randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have already shown that paclitaxel‐coated balloons and stents significantly reduce the rates of vessel restenosis and target lesion revascularization after lower extremity interventions.
Methods and Results

A systematic review and meta‐analysis of RCTs investigating paclitaxel‐coated devices in the femoral and/or popliteal arteries was performed. The primary safety measure was all‐cause patient...

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Medtronic recalls 157,000 dual-chamber pacemakers

Medtronic PLC published an urgent medical device recall Thursday for nearly 157,000 dual-chamber pacemakers sold worldwide, after discovering a glitch that can cause some devices programmed in certain modes to temporarily lose their ability to pace the heart

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Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate

Members of the Sackler family, which owns the company that makes OxyContin, directed years of efforts to mislead doctors and patients about the dangers of the powerful opioid painkiller, a court filing citing previously undisclosed documents contends.

When evidence of growing abuse of the drug became clear in the early 2000s, one of them, Richard...

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Americans more likely to die of opioid overdose than car crash, council report says

For the first time, Americans' odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose are higher than from a motor vehicle crash, a data analysis found.

Injury Facts, an analysis from the nonprofit group National Safety Council, found the lifetime odds of dying by an accidental opioid overdose were 1 in 96, and the odds of...

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F.D.A. Says It Will Resume Inspections of Some High-Risk Foods

Food safety inspectors furloughed during the federal government shutdown will be returning to work beginning Tuesday — but still without pay — so that the Food and Drug Administration can begin to resume inspections of some high-risk foods at manufacturing and other processing plants, the agency’s commissioner said on Monday.

Food inspections — about 160...

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FDA shifting funds to drug safety amid government shutdown

The Food and Drug Administration is shifting funds during the government shutdown to prioritize drug safety surveillance over pre-market drug review work, the agency’s commissioner has announced

“We’re making decisions across our portfolio to focus #FDA resources to key consumer protection functions. One action we’ll be taking is to re-allocate user fee money from certain...

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