Current Events

The safety of Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ARIA)’s leukemia drug Iclusig is being investigated by U.S. regulators because of the increasing frequency of reports of serious blood clots and narrowing of blood vessels in patients.

“Health-care professionals should consider for each patient, whether the benefits of Iclusig treatment are likely to exceed the risks of treatment,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today in a safety announcement. The agency urged doctors and patients to report side effects of the drug.

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The number of victims in the national outbreak of salmonella linked to raw chicken rose to 317 Friday, health officials reported.

The illnesses have been reported in 20 states and Puerto Rico, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The majority of cases, 73%, have been in California. No deaths have been reported.

The outbreak has been linked to chicken from three Foster Farms processing plants in central California, the Department of Agriculture said.

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The Department of Agriculture will not close the California chicken-processing plants linked to a nationwide outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, officials said.

"Foster Farms has submitted and implemented immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations," USDA spokesman Aaron Lavallee said Thursday evening.

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Two liberal House Democrats are warning that a recent salmonella outbreak is a sign of a coming “catastrophe” that could make some food-borne illnesses nearly impossible to prevent.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said that increasing amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock and chickens are producing drug-resistant strains of bacteria, making outbreaks harder to contain.

“We believe we’re on the edge of a catastrophe,” she said.

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Health officials are advising consumers to stop using a dietary supplement product labeled as OxyElite Pro because of a cluster of hepatitis cases in Hawaii among people who used the weight-loss supplement. They are also investigating whether it is linked to other cases nationwide.

Hawaii's Department of Health is investigating 29 cases of hepatitis that have led to two liver transplants and one death. Eleven patients were hospitalized.

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Thousands of contaminated or potentially tainted medications have made it to market over the past year after laboratories responsible for testing custom-made pharmaceutical products failed to follow proper procedures, FDA records show.

The Food and Drug Administration uncovered the problems during a series of surprise inspections at dozens of specialty pharmacies over the past year, prompted by last fall’s deadly meningitis outbreak tied to tainted steroid injections made by one of the pharmacies, New England Compounding Center (NECC).

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A scientific panel that shaped the federal government’s policy for testing the safety and effectiveness of painkillers was funded by major pharmaceutical companies that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to affect the thinking of the Food and Drug Administration, according to hundreds of e-mails obtained by a public records request.

The e-mails show that the companies paid as much as $25,000 to attend any given meeting of the panel, which had been set up by two academics to provide advice to the FDA on how to weigh the evidence from clinical trials. A leading FDA official later called the group “an essential collaborative effort.”

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Federal meat safety inspectors might still have their jobs on Day Two of the government shutdown — keeping steaks, hamburgers, turkey and chicken safe for human consumption — but what about the rest of the food on our plates?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, responsible for 80 percent of the food supply, is halting routine food inspections. This means no government oversight of practically everything else in the grocery store. Also, most of the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group that identifies and tracks food borne illnesses, have been told to stay home.

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The impact of the federal government's shutdown is just beginning to be felt. One area affecting car owners is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will not be posting any new recall notices as of today.

A note on NHTSA's website, which isn't easy to locate if you're not a regular user of the site, reads:

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Federal investigators found shoddy manufacturing on the Southwest 737 whose ceiling peeled away in flight in 2011, but not widespread problems among the popular aircraft.

Southwest Flight 812 decompressed April 1, 2011, while heading from Phoenix to Sacramento. The plane landed in Yuma, Ariz., after a strip of fuselage skin 5 feet long and 8 inches wide flapped open above the left wing.

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BMW will recall about 76,000 vehicles from the 2012-14 model years that are equipped with turbocharged 2-liter 4-cylinder engines because of a loss of power brake assist, the automaker has informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

BMW says the oil supply for the vacuum pump that operates the brake booster used for power assist can be “interrupted,” Matthew Russell, a BMW spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. The brakes will still function, but the driver will have to press much harder on the brake pedal. That means stopping distances could be greater, Mr. Russell said.

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