Current Events

Washington — Hyundai Motor Co. said Saturday it is recalling nearly 205,000 cars and wagons in the United States for an electronic glitch that could disable power steering.

The Korean automaker said the recall covers 2008-2010 Elantra and 2009-2010 Elantra Touring because the electronic power steering electronic control unit may sense a discrepancy in the steering input signals and, as a result, disable the steering power assist.

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Medical scopes suspected of spreading deadly bacteria are under scrutiny since an outbreak at UCLA Medical Center emerged this month. But problems with the devices were recorded years ago: The same type of scopes was implicated in a previously unreported outbreak of antibiotic-resistant superbugs six years ago in Florida that affected 70 patients, including 15 who died.

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Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $2.6 billion to settle probes into its creation and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities, as the U.S. Department of Justice holds another large Wall Street firm to account for the 2008 financial crisis.

The firm increased legal reserves related to mortgage matters by about $2.8 billion, cutting 2014 income from continuing operations by $2.7 billion, or $1.35 a share, Morgan Stanley said Wednesday in an annual regulatory filing. It’s the fourth time in the past five quarters that the New York-based bank reduced earnings in the weeks after announcing them.

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Robotic surgery can improve the accuracy and reduce the invasiveness of a broad range of surgical procedures. But it's entirely dependent on flawless execution by the surgical system. Robotic surgery player Intuitive Surgical ($ISRG) has learned this the hard way with repeated regulatory issues and recalls due to system malfunction.

In order to help address the "challenges and opportunities" raised by robotic surgery, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to hold a two-day public workshop in late July on robotically assisted surgical devices.

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The Food and Drug Administration never reviewed data from manufacturers regarding the procedures needed to clean the complex medical devices that recently infected seven patients with drug-resistant bacteria, an agency official acknowledged on Wednesday.

Now the F.D.A. has asked manufacturers to provide evidence that their recommended disinfection methods work, said Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the agency’s chief scientist.

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Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz is recalling more than 147,000 mid-size sedans and station wagons from 2013-2015 to check for risk of engine fires, the U.S. safety regulator said Saturday.

The cars have a rubber seal in the engine compartment that can fall onto the exhaust system, increasing the risk of an under-hood fire, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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The U.S. government is close to finalizing instructions to prevent medical devices responsible for transmitting "superbugs" from spreading the potentially fatal pathogens between patients, the scientist leading the effort said.

The new protocol for the reusable devices, called duodenoscopes, is being developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose disease detectives have investigated duodenoscope-transmitted infections since 2013.

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In an escalating standoff with Takata, federal regulators said on Friday that they would begin to fine the Japanese auto supplier $14,000 a day, saying it had not fully cooperated in an investigation into defective airbags.

Takata has failed to respond “fully or truthfully” to two orders that it turn over documents and information related to the defect, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wrote in a letter to the company.

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Fifteen years ago — in response to a Daily News exposé on “The 15 Most Sued Doctors in New York” — the state Health Department began publishing physician profiles to give consumers basic protection against incompetence and quackery.

That breakthrough system, available at NYDoctorProfile.com, was visited 35,000 times in December alone — a clear case of the public making good use of its right to know.

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New research is adding to scrutiny of a surgical tool called the laparoscopic power morcellator that the Food and Drug Administration has warned against using in a vast majority of cases because of its potential to spread hidden cancer in common gynecological procedures.

The University of Michigan said Thursday that researchers at its health system had found that of women who had hysterectomies for uterine growths called fibroids, one in 368 had an undetected uterine sarcoma, which could be worsened with a morcellator if doctors use that technique.

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The manufacturer of the medical scopes at the center of a deadly bacterial outbreak at UCLA Medical Center is under investigation by federal officials for possible violations of laws that ban improper payments to doctors and other customers.

Olympus Corp. of Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese manufacturer, said earlier this month that the Justice Department had been investigating its medical business since November 2011.

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