Current Events

As hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients and the coronavirus infected physicians and nurses, state medical boards took a hands-off approach to doctor discipline: Emergency actions against doctors' licenses dropped 59% from April through June of this year compared with the same period last year.

Emergency license suspensions and restrictions dropped 85% in April alone, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the National Practitioner Data Bank and provided the analysis to USA TODAY. HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services intended to improve health care for the vulnerable and support training of medical professionals.
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A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine says medical errors should rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States — and highlights how shortcomings in tracking vital statistics may hinder research and keep the problem out of the public eye.

The authors, led by Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Martin Makary, call for changes in death certificates to better tabulate fatal lapses in care. In an open letter, they urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to immediately add medical errors to its annual list reporting the top causes of death.

Bayer will pay $1.6 billion to settle lawsuits from thousands of American women who said they developed debilitating long-term health problems from the pharmaceutical giant’s product, the Essure birth control implant.

A company statement Aug. 20 said the offer would end 90% of the nearly 39,000 cases now in court or not yet filed, and Bayer is negotiating to settle the other claims. The settlement does not require Bayer to acknowledge liability or wrongdoing.

Two life-saving tuberculosis drugs were found to contain elevated levels of chemicals that may cause cancer, according to the Food and Drug Administration, but the treatments will be allowed to remain on the market out of worry that supplies could run short.

The drugs rifampin and rifapentine contain nitrosamine impurities, the FDA said in a statement Wednesday. A similar chemical contamination led to recalls in the past two years for millions of blood-pressure pills, as well as brand and generic forms of the heartburn medicine Zantac and a popular diabetes therapy. Some nitrosamine compounds are considered possible or probable human carcinogens.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday removed a boxed warning about increased risk of leg and foot amputations with Johnson & Johnson’s diabetes drug Invokana.

Invokana was approved in 2017 to be used with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes.

Reviews of new clinical data also showed the drug had additional heart and kidney related benefits, the agency said.
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Two lots of Type 2 diabetes drug metformin made by Bayshore Pharmaceuticals have been recalled for having more carcinogen NDMA than the FDA’s acceptable daily allowance.

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Three more women have died from a cancer associated with certain kinds of breast implants—all within a six-month period starting just weeks before those implants were recalled.

At least 36 women have now died of a cancer known as BIA-ALCL, for "breast implant–­associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma," according to data the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released last week. The disease, which is not a breast cancer, has been linked in academic studies to a "textured" type of breast implants made by several manufacturers, and has especially affected patients with implants made by Allergan.
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Some want direct government aid. Others want tax breaks. Many want protection against lawsuits.

Nursing homes have been the center of America’s coronavirus pandemic, with more than 62,000 residents and staff dying from Covid-19 at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, about 40 percent of the country’s virus fatalities. Now the lightly regulated industry is campaigning in Washington for federal help that could increase its profits.
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Amazon.com got more bad news from the courts Thursday. In California at least, customers who receive defective products from the "marketplace" section of its website can hold Amazon liable for harm, not just the re-seller, a California appeals court ruled.

The case was filed by Angela Bolger of San Diego, who says she received third-degree burns to her arms, legs and feet from a Chinese laptop battery she bought on Amazon.

The novel coronavirus is surging back into U.S. nursing homes, where it killed tens of thousands at the start of the pandemic and now once again threatens some of the people most vulnerable to covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The development is a discouraging result of widespread community transmission of the virus in many parts of the country and in hot spots where it is even less controlled. With staff — and in some cases patients and visitors — entering and leaving facilities, the community-acquired infection almost inevitably finds its way inside.
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(Reuters) - Advanced driver assistance technology automating steering and braking in a growing number of vehicles is not providing reliable safety benefits, a new study by the American Automobile Association showed on Thursday.

Researchers at AAA, a federation of North American motor clubs, found the systems recorded disruptions and disengaged roughly every eight miles, encountering situations they were not equipped to handle.

That creates dangerous situations if drivers rely too much on the technology and stop paying attention to the road, the AAA researchers said, adding that the systems are “far from 100% reliable.”