Current Events

Nearly 50 doctors across the United States sent an open letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday calling on the agency to “revise or rescind” its position on a controversial device that had been used on more than 50,000 women annually until the agency cautioned against it last year.

The device, known as a laparoscopic power morcellator, had been widely used to remove benign growths known as fibroid tumors from the uterus or to completely remove the uterus itself in a hysterectomy. A power morcellator has tiny, high-speed blades that mince tissue into infinitesimal pieces, allowing doctors to perform the entire procedure minimally invasively, removing unwanted tissue through small incisions.

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Fresh produce is the cause of most foodborne illnesses in the U.S., reports the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

In a study of outbreaks that occurred between 2004 and 2013, the consumer advocacy group found that fresh produce, such as cilantro, cucumbers, cantaloupes and peppers, caused 629 outbreaks and almost 20,000 illnesses.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an alert that Boston Scientific Corp. is recalling RotaWire ‘Elite’ core wires. The RotaWire Elite Guidewire and wireClip Torquer Guidewire are part of the Rotablator Rotational Atheroctomy System, a device used to open narrow arteries and improve blood flow to the heart.

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A Danish study has found that news stories that focus on the risks or adverse effects of statin drugs may lead people to stop taking the medicines, and probably contribute to increases in heart attacks and deaths.

The researchers tracked 674,000 people who started taking statins between 1995 and 2010, and identified 1,931 statin-related news stories during that time. They graded 110 of the stories as negative, 731 as positive and the rest neutral. The study is online in the European Heart Journal.

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Zafgen Inc. said its trial of an experimental drug to fight obesity was placed on hold by U.S. regulators after a second patient died.

The trial, in patients with a rare genetic disease called Prader-Willi syndrome that causes overeating, was the last study Zafgen needed to complete before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would decide whether to approve the drug for those patients.

While Zafgen had finished the part of the trial that compared effects of the drug to a placebo, it continued with an extension phase in which all the patients took the drug. The FDA ordered a complete clinical hold, meaning Zafgen must stop this extension phase and all other clinical work on the drug, the drugmaker said Wednesday in a statement.

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Buried in the fine print of contracts and agreements we sign for things like cell phones, credit cards and even admitting loved ones to nursing homes, are a few words with a big impact on a constitutional right.

A recent series of articles published in the New York Times shone a light on the secretive practice of what really happens when small business owners, students, employees and others "click here to agree": forced arbitration.

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Report alleges VW pulled its latest Polo TDI ‘Bluemotion’ due to particularly big discrepancy over emissions.

Volkswagen AG’s VLKAY 4.68% top executives knew a year ago that some of the company’s cars were markedly less fuel efficient than had been officially stated, Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag reported, without specifying its sources.

VW in early November revealed that it had understated the level of carbon dioxide emissions and fuel usage in around 800,000 cars sold mainly in Europe.

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League physicians sought to discredit Bennet Omalu’s autopsy study showing widespread brain damage in former Steelers star Mike Webster

In 2002, a Pittsburgh neuropathologist named Bennet Omalu, a native of Nigeria, examined the body of 50-year-old former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster. At the end of his life, Webster had suffered a steep mental decline, becoming violent, depressed and forgetful and pushed to increasingly desperate lengths to battle chronic pain. In Webster’s brain, Dr. Omalu, who holds multiple advanced degrees and certifications from top American medical schools, discovered what would mark a turning point in the evolution of thinking about the effects of head injuries in professional football. The following excerpt is from “Concussion” published this week by Random House, and is based on the author’s interviews and other research. Laskas’s reporting is the focus of a forthcoming movie by the same name.

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The E. coli outbreak traced to Costco chicken salads appears to have been caused by vegetables in the salad, rather than the chicken itself, according to company officials.

Tests performed by the Food and Drug Administration and Montana health officials traced the E. coli to an onion and celery mix, rather than the rotisserie chicken itself, Craig Wilson, Costco's vice president of food safety and quality assurance, told USA TODAY. Health officials are performing additional tests to confirm this link.

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Wheelchair users have a significantly higher risk of being killed in car collisions than other pedestrians, according to recent research.

The study, published in the online journal BMJ Open, found that those in wheelchairs are three times more likely to die in road traffic collisions than the rest of the population and most of these deaths occur at intersections. The research also showed that men in wheelchairs are five times more likely than women in wheelchairs to die in these accidents.

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The US Food and Drug Administration issued another warning Friday about failures in artery-clearing tools made by Boston Scientific Corp. that resulted in one patient dying.

A patient died in September, four days after a wire piece broke off one of the components and perforated a vessel, according to an FDA report. Two other patients were also injured when the parts broke during operations.

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