Current Events

As General Motors publicly expressed remorse over its decade-long failure to disclose defective ignition switches, it successfully fought to retain its protection from any lawsuits for crashes that occurred before its 2009 bankruptcy.

Instead, G.M. offered compensation to those victims on its own terms, with a fund run by the lawyer Kenneth R. Feinberg and limited to 2.6 million small cars that were recalled in early 2014.

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Boston Scientific Corp.’s Maple Grove campus is recalling its global supply of 7,000 Chariot Guiding Sheaths because parts of the device can break off during medical procedures and obstruct blood flow.

The company says doctors who used the Chariot sheath for minimally invasive procedures in the legs and arms should check back with those patients to make sure they’re doing OK.

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The antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice has subpoenaed Mylan N.V. for information relating to the marketing, pricing and sale of its generic doxycycline antibiotic products, the drugmaker said on Friday.

The Department of Justice has sought information on any communication with competitors about the anti-bacterial products, the company said in a regulatory filing, adding it would cooperate with the federal agency.

The nearly 40-year-old antibiotic is used to treat bacterial infections such as acne, pneumonia, Lyme disease, chlamydia and syphilis.

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Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., reeling from an E. coli outbreak that has sickened dozens of customers, closed a restaurant in Boston following complaints of  “gastrointestinal symptoms” from more than two dozen Boston College students, including members of the men’s basketball team.

“Our restaurant at Cleveland Circle in Boston is temporarily closed while we work with local health officials to investigate a number of illnesses among Boston College students,” Chris Arnold, a spokesman for the chain, said in an e-mail. “There are no confirmed cases of E. coli connected to Chipotle in Massachusetts.”

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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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