Current Events

(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday it was requesting makers of all versions of heartburn drug Zantac to remove the drugs from the market immediately due to the presence of a probable carcinogen.

French drugmaker Sanofi SA’s Zantac and some generic versions of the treatment, also known as ranitidine, have been recalled over the last year due to possible contamination with N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA).

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The large red-and-white bins at Walmart pharmacies across the country read, in bold all-caps type: “Approximately every 40 seconds an American will have a heart attack.”

Inside the 3-foot-tall cartons, adorned with the American Heart Association and Bayer logos, were dozens of boxes of low-dose Bayer aspirin.

The implication was that everyone could reduce their heart attack risk by taking a “baby aspirin.” But recent studies have found that’s not the case.

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Aspirin, the original wonder drug, has long been a go-to medicine for millions, a Jack-of-all trades remedy that is readily available and cheap. Championed for its ability to relieve pain, fever and inflammation, aspirin has been a staple in home medicine cabinets and first-aid kits for more than a century.

Yet in recent years its reputation has been sullied by recognition of potentially serious side effects, especially dangerous bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract or the brain. Given aspirin’s longevity and over-the-counter status, those risks are sometimes overlooked by consumers who take it with less care than is medically warranted.

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A federal judge approved on Thursday a Ford Motor Co. class-action settlement that will result in the repurchase of thousands of defective Ford Fiesta and Focus vehicles for up to $22,000 apiece, according to lawyers who crafted the agreement.

"You could see where this settlement could end up costing Ford hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially $500 million," said Michael Kirkpatrick, a lawyer at the nonprofit Public Citizen consumer advocacy group, who successfully argued against both Ford and the class-action law firm for re-review of the case in 2019 to get a better deal for consumers.

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Drugmakers would develop better cancer treatments for elderly populations if they included more of them in their clinical trials, the FDA said Thursday in policy recommendations to improve representation for older patients.

“Older adults are underrepresented in cancer clinical trials despite representing a growing segment of the population of cancer patients,” according to the recommendations.

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Surgery can not only be risky for patients, but it also poses a risk for doctors as well in terms of medical malpractice claims.

Surgery is the second most common cause for medical malpractice claims against doctors overall, according to a new report from medical liability insurer Coverys.

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(Reuters) - Online pharmacy Valisure said on Monday its tests showed high levels of a probable cancer-causing impurity in diabetes drug metformin.

High levels of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) were found in metformin made by 11 companies, including Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc and Aurobindo Pharma Ltd, the company said in a statement.

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Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a Florida jury to pay $9 million to an 82-year-old woman who blamed asbestos-tainted talc for her cancer, the latest court loss for the company in U.S. litigation over its iconic baby powder.

Jurors in Miami concluded on Thursday that asbestos in baby powder used by Blanca Mure-Cabrera over her lifetime contributed to the development of her mesothelioma, said David Jagolinzer, one of her lawyers. That type of cancer has been specifically linked to asbestos exposure.

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Two lots of Phenytoin Oral Suspension 125mg/5mL infants and children’s seizure medicine have been recalled for a problem that can cause overdosing or underdosing.

According to the FDA-posted recall notice written by manufacturer Taro Pharmaceuticals, “product from these two lots of Phenytoin Oral Suspension may not re-suspend when shaken, as instructed for administration, which could result in under or overdosing.”

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James “Jim” McHugh started smoking when he was a teenager and continued to do so for nearly five decades.

He tried quitting cold turkey. He tried chewing gum. He even tried hypnosis. By the time he found a prescription medicine that could help him, he was a very sick man.

In 2009, McHugh, who was an officer in two Miami-Dade police departments and had served in the U.S. Marines, died at age 66 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

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Medtronic is recalling more than 322,000 of its insulin pumps because of a missing or broken component that can lead to over- or under-delivery of insulin. The problem is linked to one death, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The recall is a "class I" recall, which the FDA says is "the most serious type of recall."

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