Current Events

BMW of North America will recall about 91,800 Mini Coopers because of a faulty sensor in front seats produced in part by a German unit of Johnson Controls Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of automotive interiors.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the sensor might not detect a passenger in the front seat and the air bag would not deploy in a crash. Johnson Controls produced the complete seats, but not the sensors, according to Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for the Glendale-based company.

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The alert hit HEB Grocery in San Antonio late Monday: Blue Bell Creameries, a Southwestern favorite and the country’s third-largest ice cream brand, was recalling all its frozen desserts over concerns of contamination by the potentially deadly bacteria listeria.

HEB, which runs 300 stores across southern Texas, immediately placed a lock on its cash registers to prevent sales of Blue Bell ice creams. Within an hour, workers had banished all Blue Bell products from store shelves.

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BMW of North America LLC will recall about 91,800 Mini Coopers in the U.S. to fix a flaw with the passenger seat mat that may prevent the air bag from deploying, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall, posted on NHTSA’s website Saturday, affects about 59,270 Mini Cooper and Cooper S models manufactured from January 2005 to November 2006, and about 32,530 Mini Cooper convertibles and Cooper S convertibles produced between January 2005 and July 2008.

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Volkswagen has issued a revised recall for its Chrysler-built Routan minivan, after the Detroit automaker's initial repair failed to effectively remedy an ignition-switch defect.

Chrysler made an equivalent revision last month, promising to replace the entire ignition-switch module rather than just an elastomer detent ring. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had opened an investigation into the first fix after owners of repaired vehicles continued to report inadvertent key movement from 'run' to the 'accessory' position.

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A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday blocked most lawsuits against General Motors over a defective ignition switch that is tied to at least 84 deaths, sparing the automaker billions in claims and handing it a momentous victory as it tries to move past its gravest safety crisis.

Judge Robert E. Gerber of the United State Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan ruled that the liability shield included in the 2009 agreement that lifted G.M. from bankruptcy should be allowed to remain in place, even though the company has acknowledged that many employees knew about the defective switch at the time but failed to alert owners of the cars that they might have a potential claim against the company.

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Reports alerting federal officials that contaminated medical scopes appeared to be spreading deadly superbugs among hospital patients sometimes arrived months late – or not at all, according to federal records and interviews.

Medical device makers are required to file reports to the Food and Drug Administration within 30 days of learning that a product may pose safety risks. But as duodenoscopes were tied to the transmission of drug-resistant bacteria among patients in at least eight U.S. hospitals from 2012-2014, the agency wasn't notified of some outbreaks until long after they occurred, an ongoing USA TODAY investigation finds. And in some cases, the disclosures never were filed.

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The cardiovascular risk of diabetes drugs made by AstraZeneca Plc and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is acceptable, though the drugs’ labels should include safety information on heart failure, U.S. advisers said.

Most members of a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted Tuesday to recommend the agency add data from trials on the heart effects to the labels of AstraZeneca’s Onglyza and Takeda’s Nesina. They also voted that the drugs’ cardiovascular risk is acceptable.

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(Reuters) - AstraZeneca Plc's diabetes drug Onglyza may be associated with an increased rate of death, according to a preliminary review of data by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA's report, posted on the agency's website on Friday, comes ahead of an April 14 meeting of an FDA advisory panel to discuss the safety of Onglyza and a similar drug from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co called Nesina. Onglyza won U.S. approval in 2009 and Nesina in 2013.

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A little-noticed provision of a bill passed by the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support would provide doctors new protections against medical malpractice lawsuits.

The bill, which requires the government to measure the quality of care that doctors provide and rate their performance on a scale of zero to 100, protects doctors by stipulating that the quality-of-care standards used in federal health programs — Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act — cannot be used in malpractice cases.

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Wrinkles happen. And when they do, many women, and some men, start searching store aisles or the Internet for a cure.

While there is no such thing, stores and websites are happy to sell consumers wrinkle creams and other "anti-aging" products that, typically, promise to reduce "the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles."

Lately, some are promising a lot more — and getting into trouble with the Food and Drug Administration.

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The government’s plea agreement with Austin (Jack) DeCoster, his son Peter, and Quality Egg LLC  leaves it “to the the Court’s discretion whether to impose a sentence of incarceration, home confinement, or probation,” according to a newly available court document.

That disclosure came in the government’s brief filed Monday in advance of next week’s sentencing of the three defendants, who have already pleaded guilty under an agreement with the government.

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