Current Events

The Food and Drug Administration, which has encountered recent criticism for not acting more aggressively to address infections spread by contaminated medical scopes, said Thursday it will begin requiring manufacturers of certain reusable devices to submit data showing they can be cleaned reliably.

The agency also announced that it will convene a panel of experts in May to study the safety issues facing duodenoscopes. These were the specialized endoscopy devices behind the recent outbreak of a drug-resistant “superbug” at two Los Angeles hospitals, as well as similar outbreaks around the country in recent years.

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(Bloomberg) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV is doing a second recall of 703,000 minivans and SUVs with a defective ignition switch that can rotate out of position, similar to the faulty General Motors Co. part tied to dozens of deaths.

The action covers the 2008-2010 Dodge Grand Caravan, Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Journey, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a document posted on its website Friday.

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If a hospital learns that hackers breached your medical records, federal law requires that it inform you. If the same hospital learns you may have been exposed to a deadly pathogen, it usually doesn’t have to say a thing.

That's because hospitals don’t have a legal obligation to tell patients about the presence of pathogens — even antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These so-called superbugs are increasingly common, and are so deadly that Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has described them as “nightmare bacteria." Recent outbreaks, linked to contaminated endoscopes at UCLA and other hospitals, are bringing this policy gap to the fore.

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Nissan is expanding an earlier recall of its popular Altima sedans to fix a flaw that can cause the hood to fly open while the car is being driven.

The Japanese automaker now says 625,000 Altimas built in the U.S. from the 2013 through 2015 model years are affected by the issue. Nissan initially recalled 220,000 cars from the 2013 model year in October for the same problem.

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Women on HRT pills should be aware that there is a small chance of an increased risk of blood clots and possibly stroke, according to a study.

The link was made by the international Cochrane group, which looked at medical trials involving some 40,000 women.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration is keeping a bold-letter warning on Pfizer's anti-smoking drug Chantix about suicidal behavior and other psychiatric side effects, after reviewing company findings suggesting the drug does not increase those problems.

The twice-a-day tablet has carried the FDA's strongest warning label since 2009, following reports of suicidal tendencies and violent or bizarre behavior among some patients.

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Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a California jury to pay $5.7 million to a woman who said one of the company’s Abbrevo vaginal-mesh implants eroded inside her, forcing her to have surgery, in the first verdict over that device.

Jurors in state court in Bakersfield deliberated for more than three days before concluding Thursday that J&J’s Abbrevo mesh sling was defectively designed and officials of J&J’s Ethicon unit failed to properly warn doctors and consumers about the device’s risks. The panel awarded Coleen Perry $700,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages over the mishandling of the device.

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By the time 18-year-old Aaron Young wound up at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles last October, he’d been wrestling for months with excruciating stomach pain and vomiting that repeatedly sent him to the emergency room.

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Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles announced on Wednesday that four patients had contracted a deadly, drug-resistant infection linked to a hard-to-clean medical device. The device, called a duodenoscope, also has been implicated in an outbreak of infections at Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center. The device, a long tube inserted down the throats of anesthetized patients, has microscopic crevices that may have harbored a superbug known as CRE, or carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, officials say. Cedars-Sinai said four patients contracted the infection after undergoing procedures between August and January. One later died, but the cause was an unrelated disease. Hospital officials said they had mailed letters to dozens of other patients who had had the procedures “out of an abundance of caution.”

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Two of the biggest auto recalls in history took place last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration summary of 2014 recall activity, published today.

They were General Motors' recall of 5.88 million U.S. vehicles for possibly faulty ignition switches that can disable airbags, and Honda's recall of 5.39 million for potentially defective Takata-brand airbags.

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The Food and Drug Administration, already under fire for its response to superbug outbreaks at U.S. hospitals, has tried and failed twice to get medical scope manufacturers to prove their controversial devices can be cleaned of deadly bacteria.

The embattled agency said Monday that it didn't request the information until spring 2014 — despite earlier warnings about tainted scopes — and that it has given device makers three chances to validate their cleaning protocols.

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