Current Events

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and a Livonia-based window-blinds manufacturer announced Thursday they're recalling more than 450,000 custom blinds.

A 2-year-old Commerce Township girl reportedly was strangled by a vertical-blinds cord in 2009. Blinds Xpress owner Larry Carollo said he settled a lawsuit with the family.

Click here to read more.

Summer Infant is recalling about two million baby bathers because when the bather is lifted and/or carried with an infant in it, its folding wire frame can suddenly disengage from the side hinge, dropping the baby out of the bather, posing a fall hazard and a risk of serious head injury to infants.

Click here to read more.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and parent company Johnson & Johnson on Thursday announced a $181 million settlement with 36 states and the District of Columbia over charges of marketing anti-psychotic drugs for non-approved uses.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, representing one of the states involved, claimed in a court filing that Janssen engaged in deceptive practices from 1998 to at least 2004 in the marketing of the drugs Risperdal, Risperdal Consta, Risperdal M-Tab and Invega. The multistate settlement comes amid a similar federal case that is still pending.

Click here to read more.

The city has doled out $134 million this year for medical mishaps at its 11 public hospitals, some during child birth and others resulting in permanent disabilities.

And taxpayers are picking up the tab — more than half a billion dollars in the last four fiscal years alone, city records show.

Click here to read more.

Health officials in Mexico order recall based on potentially harmful pharmaceutical ingredients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers that Reumofan Plus, marketed as a “natural” dietary supplement for pain relief and other serious conditions, contains several active pharmaceutical ingredients not listed on the label that could be harmful.

Consumers who are currently taking Reumofan Plus or who have recently stopped taking Reumofan Plus should immediately consult a health care professional. Consumers should not buy or start using the product.

Click here to read more.

A Jefferson Parish jury has awarded a Webster Parish woman $24.2 million in damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Jurors sided with the woman in finding that her toddler was left with irreversible brain damage after an infusion pump malfunctioned during his surgery at Ochsner Clinic Foundation seven years ago.

Tyronglia Willis, of Springhill, sued Ochsner and the pump manufacturers in 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna on behalf of her son, Ty'Kevion Kidd, who was 3 when he underwent surgery in March 2005 at the Jefferson Highway hospital to correct a congenital heart defect.

Click here to read more.

U.S. health regulators announced a recall of CareFusion's Alaris pump module Model 8100, saying a potential keypad malfunction in the infusion pump could cause serious injury or death.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the affected pump modules, used for delivering a variety of fluids, drugs and blood products to patients, were manufactured between October 2011 and February 2012.

Click here to read more.

A New Jersey teenager left brain-damaged after being struck by a line drive off a metal bat while he was playing in a youth baseball game will receive $14.5 million to settle his lawsuit against the bat manufacturer, Little League Baseball and a sporting goods chain.

The settlement of Steven Domalewski's lawsuit was announced in state Superior Court on Wednesday morning in Passaic County. The boy, now 18, lives in Wayne, N.J. His family had claimed the metal bat was unsafe because baseballs could carom off it at much faster speeds than wooden bats.

Click here to read more.

Implanted pumps made by Medtronic Inc. (MDT) to deliver painkillers and drugs may corrode and fail, said U.S. regulators who requested a meeting to discuss the issue.

The Food and Drug Administration letter stems from an inspection at the neuromodulation unit for Minneapolis-based Medtronic that concluded May 9 and found corrosion in the SynchroMed II pump can cause the motor to stall or seize.

Click here to read more.

A deadly outbreak of salmonella in cantaloupes is stirring controversy about how transparent state and federal health authorities should be as they investigate the source of food-borne illnesses.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Indiana State Department of Health advised consumers Friday to throw out cantaloupe grown in southwestern Indiana following a salmonella outbreak that killed two people and sickened about 150 people across the country.

Click here to read more.

The number of people sickened by Salmonella traced to chicks and ducklings from an Ohio mail order hatchery has risen from 123 to 163, according to a report released Monday by the U.S.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   

The illnesses - linked to contact with live baby poultry sold by Mt. Hatchery of Cincinnati, OH - began in March of this year. Three strains of Salmonella - Salmonella Infantis, Salmonella Lille and Salmonella Newport - have been associated with animals from the hatchery.

Click here to read more.