Current Events

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.

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Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agency instructed medical devices major, St. Jude Medical, Inc.to conduct a study to examine insulation failure in Riata defibrillator leads, a thin wire used to connect cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) to the heart to monitor abnormal heart rhythm.

The agency has recommended that X-rays or other imaging alternatives should be conducted in patients who have been implanted with the heart device to increase clinical know-how. The FDA also recommended St. Jude to carry out post-market surveillance studies to accumulate information regarding the risks associated with the Riata leads for 3 years.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which faces about 8,000 lawsuits over hip implants it recalled in 2010, agreed to pay about $600,000 to resolve three cases in the first settlements of the litigation, people familiar with the accords said.

Officials of J&J’s DePuy unit agreed earlier this month to settle Nevada residents’ suits over the company’s ASR hip implants, two people familiar with the agreement said. The company will pay about $200,000 a case to resolve the suits before they were scheduled to go to trial later this year, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the accords.

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An outbreak of salmonella infections across 20 states has resulted in two deaths and sickened 141 people in recent weeks, state and federal authorities said.

The source of the outbreak appears to be cantaloupes from a farm in southwestern Indiana, the authorities said. They urged consumers who have purchased melons grown in that area to discard them.

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A Northern California produce supplier said Sunday it is voluntarily recalling romaine lettuce that was shipped to 19 states, Puerto Rico and Canada over fears about possible E. coli contamination.

Salinas-based Tanimura & Antle said the recall is limited to a single lot of its Field Fresh Wrapped Single Head Romaine that was available at retail stores starting Aug. 2. The lettuce is packed in a plastic bag with the UPC number 0-27918-20314-9, and it may have a “best by” date of Aug. 19.

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The Food and Drug Administration ordered St. Jude Medical on Thursday to conduct additional studies on patients implanted with heart-device components that were recalled last year and that have been linked to as many as 20 deaths. It also recommended that patients receive X-rays or other imaging to check for problems with their devices.

The Riata lead, which St. Jude stopped selling in 2010, is a wire that connects a defibrillator to a patient’s heart. Internal wires in the lead have been shown to break through the protective outer coating and cause unintended shocks in some patients. Defective leads may also prevent the defibrillator from working when needed by the patient. Defibrillators deliver a jolt of electricity to interrupt a potentially fatal heart rhythm.

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Johnson & Johnson, which makes a range of personal care products like baby shampoo, acne cream and antiwrinkle lotion, announced plans Wednesday to remove a host of potentially harmful chemicals, like formaldehyde, from its line of consumer products by the end of 2015, becoming the first major consumer products company to make such a widespread commitment.

The company had already pledged to remove certain chemicals from its baby products by 2013, but the latest announcement extended the program to its adult products, including well-known drugstore brands like Neutrogena, Aveeno and Clean & Clear.

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About four million Bumbo baby seats are being voluntarily recalled by Bumbo International Trust.

The popular single piece molded-foam baby seats were sold at U.S. stores like Babies "R" Us, Sears, Target, Toys "R" Us, and Walmart from August 2003 through August 2012.

The seats are being recalled as babies have been falling out of them and suffering severe injuries like fractured skulls. In fact, since an earlier 2007 recall for a similar problem, another 50 incidents have been reported of babies falling out of the seats with 19 reported skull fractures, reports Reuters.

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Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest home mortgage lender, has agreed to pay at least $175 million to settle accusations that its independent brokers discriminated against black and Hispanic borrowers during the housing boom, the Justice Department announced on Thursday. If approved by a federal judge, it would be the second-largest residential fair-lending settlement in the department’s history.

An investigation by the department’s civil rights division found that mortgage brokers working with Wells Fargo had charged higher fees and rates to more than 30,000 minority borrowers across the country than they had to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk, according to a complaint filed on Thursday along with the proposed settlement.

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Bayer AG (BAYRY) said settlements of U.S. lawsuits over claims that its Yasmin line of birth-control pills caused blood clots in women have increased to more than $402 million.

Bayer, based in Leverkusen, Germany, has resolved almost 1,900 cases in which it’s alleged that its Yasmin and Yaz contraceptives caused clots that can lead to heart attacks and strokes, the company said today in a stockholders’ newsletter. Bayer said it has paid $402.6 million in settlements of one category of clot cases, for an average of about $212,000 a case.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)’s Synthes unit, a maker of tools and implants to treat damaged bones, along with its former Norian Corp. subsidiary, was sued by the family of a woman who died during an unapproved trial of a bone cement.

Lois L. Eskind lost her life on Jan. 13, 2003, after a surgeon injected Synthes’s Norian SRS drug into her spine mixed with barium sulfate. Moments after the mixture leaked into her venous system she suffered cardiac arrest, according to the complaint filed July 27 in federal court in Philadelphia by her daughter, Eva Sloan.

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