Current Events

Cybersecurity researchers have warned that hackers can hijack cars and even rifles. Now, federal regulators are warning that a pump used to deliver medicine to patients is at risk of being breached.

While computers can make medical devices more accurate, they are also vulnerable to the same sort of coding bugs that end up in other software. A nefarious hacker who makes his way into a pacemaker or insulin pump could potentially do a lot more damage than one who makes it into your laptop or smartphone.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is offering hospitals advice on how to avoid spreading drug-resistant superbugs with reusable medical scopes that have proven difficult to clean.

The instructions aren't mandatory, and some hospitals may not even be equipped to follow them. But the advice may help avert future infections from contaminated scopes, known as duodenoscopes, that have been linked to at least 13 deaths and dozens of infections at several U.S. hospitals, including UCLA Medical Center and Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center. The instruments are used in more than 600,000 procedures each year to diagnose and treat disorders of the bile ducts in the small intestine.

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Aug 3 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said over the weekend it is recalling about 322,000 Dodge Charger sedans in North America because side air bags can deploy when a car door is slammed.

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Officials have implemented a partial import ban on some cilantro from Mexico after unsanitary conditions were documented at farms and packing locations, including feces and toilet paper that were found in fields.

The cilantro in question was shipped out of the state of Puebla, Mexico, from April 1 through Aug. 31, according to an import alert that the Food and Drug Administration posted Monday. The herbs can't come into the United States without inspections, the alert states.

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Washington — Two senators want the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to take “immediate action” to investigate to potential widespread risk to consumers of vehicle hacking in the wake of Fiat Chrysler’s recall of 1.4 million vehicles for cyberintrusion risks.

U.S. Sens Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. urged NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind on Tuesday to take speedy action.

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In a rare demand that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles buy back as many as 193,000 flawed vehicles, the top U.S. traffic safety agency signaled a tougher stance on automakers that don't identify and quickly repair defects.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, criticized for its slow response to past auto problems, also wrestled admissions from Fiat Chrysler that it violated safety regulations and ordered the automaker to pay a record $105-million fine.

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Here’s how we think we discover powerful new medicines: Scientists dig deep into biology and zero in on a molecular Achilles’ heel that could disable a devastating disease, be it cancer or an infection. They concoct experimental drugs that hit the target. Then they conduct trials to find one that is safe and effective in people.

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WASHINGTON — When the call came to officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they knew they had a problem they had never faced but had long feared.

On the line was Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, with news that two technology researchers had hacked wirelessly into a Jeep Cherokee, through its dashboard connectivity system. They had managed to gain control of not just features like the radio and air-conditioning, but the actual functions of the car: the engine, the brakes and the steering.

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Senior U.S. health officials have squelched a Food and Drug Administration proposal that for the first time would have curbed dentists’ use of mercury – one of the planet’s nastiest toxins because it attacks the central nervous system – in treating Americans’ decayed teeth.

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A study into the safety of surgical robots has linked the machines' use to at least 144 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries over a 14-year period in the US.

The events included broken instruments falling into patients' bodies, electrical sparks causing tissue burns and system errors making surgery take longer than planned.

The report notes that the figures represent a small proportion of the total number of robotic procedures.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) agreed to pay $388 million to settle a suit by investors claiming that the largest U.S. bank had misled them about the safety of $10 billion worth of residential mortgage-backed securities it sold before the financial crisis.

The lawsuit, brought by Fort Worth Employees' Retirement Fund and other investors in offerings made before the 2008 financial crisis, accused JPMorgan of misleading them about the underwriting, appraisals and credit quality of the home loans underlying the certificates.

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