Current Events

In December 2010, St. Jude Medical Inc. issued a warning letter to doctors: Wires inside Riata defibrillator leads—cables that connect the heart to implantable defibrillators—were sometimes breaking through their insulation from the inside out.

The problem, which ultimately led to a recall last year, could cause defibrillators to send unnecessary jolts to the heart or fail to deliver lifesaving shocks to return chaotic heart rhythms back to normal. The company said it had identified dozens of cases with visible signs of the problem, and pulled Riata from the market.

For many doctors, this was the first notice of a problem with Riata.

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Insurance companies, often stuck with the tab for health services when a medical device fails, are ready to share the pain.

As the number of costly, high-profile recalls rises, along with pressure to cut their own spending, insurers are starting to pin more of the responsibility on manufacturers.

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New England Compounding Pharmacy, investigated in connection with a meningitis outbreak that has killed eight people and sickened 105, yesterday recalled all of its products.

The outbreak in nine U.S. states has been linked by the Food and Drug Administration to contaminated steroids used for back pain sold by the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company. Also known as New England Compounding Center, the company is cooperating with probes by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NECC said in a statement.

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The number of people sickened by a nationwide meningitis outbreak has risen to at least 91 patients in nine states, with seven deaths, health officials said Sunday, and potentially hundreds more could be affected.

Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana had previously reported cases. This weekend, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio joined the list. Tennessee has been hardest hit, with 32 cases and three deaths.

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At least five people have died in an outbreak of a rare form of meningitis caused by a fungal infection from steroids often used to combat back pain, said government officials, who warned against using products from the drug manufacturer.

In a telephone news conference  Thursday, officials of the national  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said that, in addition to causing the five deaths, the treatment with methylprednisolone acetate has sickened 30 people in six states.

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An outbreak of a rare type of meningitis, linked to spinal injections for back pain, is growing and has killed four people and sickened at least 30 others in five states, health officials said on Wednesday. New cases are appearing every day.\

“I’m afraid we’re going to see many more cases spread across the country,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

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American Express is paying $112.5 million in refunds and fines to settle regulators' accusations that it charged unlawful late fees and deceived customers to pressure them to pay off old debts or buy extra credit card services.

The company agreed to the settlements announced Monday by four federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Utah regulators.

American Express is refunding $85 million to about 250,000 customers and is paying $27.5 million in civil fines.

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A federal court in Virginia on Tuesday approved a settlement in which Abbott Laboratories agreed to pay $1.5 billion over allegations that it promoted the anti-seizure drug Depakote for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Abbott agreed in May to pay a criminal fine and forfeiture of $700 million and settlements with the federal government and states totaling $800 million. The settlement was approved Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Abingdon. Virginia will receive $4.2 million from the civil settlement.

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General Motors is recalling more than 40,000 vehicles, citing concerns that a fuel pump module could crack and cause a fire in the event of a fuel leak.

The recall, disclosed in a letter by GM to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Friday, affects five models from 2007 through 2009: the Chevrolet Cobalt (2007-2009), Chevrolet Equinox (2007), Pontiac G5 (2007-2009), Pontiac Torrent (2007) and Saturn Ion (2007).

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Bank of America has resolved one of the largest and most embarrassing pieces of litigation related to its merger with Merrill Lynch in 2008. But the settlement comes with a pretty hefty price tag, since the bank has agreed to pay $2.43 billion to end the lawsuit. That monetary award ranks it as one of the largest settlements in a securities class-action case, behind the settlement over the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger.

The acquisition of Merrill caused Bank of America plenty of headaches by adding toxic mortgage assets to its balance sheet on top of what the bank took on when it bought Countrywide Financial. The bank has also been fighting with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over whether it will have to take back bad mortgages packaged into mortgage-backed securities.

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After the government approved a $25 billion housing settlement in February, scams promising relief to homeowners with troubled mortgages have risen, according to the Washington Post.

“Every time there’s a new government program announced — in this case, it’s a very large settlement — scam artists use that as an opportunity to defraud people,” Lisa Madigan, the Illinois Attorney General, told Washington Post.

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