Current Events

Lt. Rudolph Feres parachuted into the darkness in the first hours of D-Day in 1944. He fought his way through the hedgerows of Normandy and the snows of the Bulge to the final defeat of Nazi Germany, and was highly decorated for valor.

Generations of servicemen and women since then have heard his name, but not for any of that. Instead, it has been invoked time and again to deny active-duty members of the military a right extended to nearly every other American — to sue for injuries.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other healthcare regulators are investigating whether diabetes drug metformin had contaminations of a cancer-causing chemical that prompted a recall of a commonly used heartburn medication this year.

The move is part of the FDA’s broader push to investigate a range of drugs for the presence of the carcinogen, known as N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), with heartburn drug Zantac being recalled this year for fear it contained NDMA.

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The parents of a 3-year-old who died after heart surgery at North Carolina Children’s Hospital in 2016 are suing the institution, saying it failed to disclose internal concerns about the quality of its care.

Tasha and Thomas Jones, the parents, also allege that doctors didn’t warn them about problems with the heart surgery program, and “instead chose to protect their own reputational and monetary interests” by continuing to refer patients to the Chapel Hill hospital, according to a complaint filed on Thursday in North Carolina state court.

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At an invitation-only gathering late last year, U.S. regulators and their guests huddled at a hotel near Washington, D.C., to discuss the best way to detect cancer-causing asbestos in talc powders and cosmetics.

The “Asbestos in Talc Symposium,” sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration, was dominated by industry hands: Most of the 21 non-government participants had done work for talc companies, such as testing and serving as expert witnesses and consultants, symposium documents and other records show.

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Carlos Solis never knew he was driving with a “shrapnel bomb” inside his steering wheel.

The 35-year-old father of two was waiting to make a left turn on a suburban road outside Houston when another car struck the front end of his Honda Accord, triggering its airbags.

Instead of protecting Solis, the defective airbags shot a piece of metal into his neck and severed his carotid artery, killing him within minutes.

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Many supplements marketed for brain health may contain piracetam, an ingredient not proven effective for preventing or easing dementia or cognitive impairment and not approved for sale in the U.S., researchers say.

In an analysis of five products purchased online, researchers found that four contained piracetam, sometimes in dangerously high amounts. The fifth, which was labeled and sold as piracetam, contained no detectable amount of the drug.

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A Pennsylvania appeals court upheld a $70 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit charging its Risperdal anti-psychotic drug caused a man to grow female breasts and also ruled that punitive damages may be available in the case.

In addition to upholding the verdict for Tennessee resident Andrew Yount, the Pennsylvania Superior Court Tuesday sent back to the Philadelphia trial judge the issue of punitive damages in the case, potentially raising the stakes for J&J. The company was hit last month with $8 billion in punitive damages in another Philadelphia Risperdal case.

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Federal health and regulatory officials warned consumers Friday not to eat romaine lettuce of any kind harvested from the Salinas Valley, one of California’s major agricultural regions, because it may be contaminated with a particularly dangerous type of E. coli bacteria that has sickened 40 people in 16 states.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, if it was harvested from Salinas, a growing area in Northern California. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head, precut or part of a mix.

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More than 1,350 Australian women won a seven-year-old class action lawsuit on Thursday against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) for misleading patients and surgeons about the risks of the pharmaceutical giant’s pelvic mesh implants.

The suit is one of many J&J has faced in the United States, Canada and Europe over the implants, used to treat urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, in which organs shift from normal positions. J&J in October agreed to pay nearly $117 million to resolve claims in 41 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

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IKEA pulled in $6 billion in U.S. sales last year. Crystal Ellis wants that number to be lower.

The Seattle mom's 2-year-old son, Camden, was killed by a falling IKEA dresser in 2014, which has since been recalled by the company. Three years later, she requested to meet with the president of the retailer, pleading for action to get the dresser out of other homes.

That meeting has not yet happened. And Ellis is not the only parent demanding it.

There have been at least 186 reports of Malm dressers tipping over, with 91 resulting in injuries. There are 113 more reports of other IKEA dresser fall-overs, resulting in 53 injuries. In all, eight children have died from the incidents.

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The Food and Drug Administration has issued a Class 1 recall—its most serious such notice—of the Forte Gamma Camera System, worried it could cause serious injury or even death.

Concerns stem from the possibility that the 660-pound system’s detector may become detached from the device without warning, potentially crushing or trapping patients, according to an FDA notice issued Monday, Nov. 4.

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