Current Events

Smiths Medical, the Plymouth-based maker of hospital infusion pumps, confirmed earlier this month cybersecurity vulnerabilities in its Medfusion 4000 drug pumps, which are used in pediatric cases worldwide.

The company said Monday that it has received no reports of computer hackers exploiting the ­vulnerabilities.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Equifax said on Friday that it made changes in its top management as part of its review of a massive data breach, with two technology and security executives leaving the company “effective immediately.”

The credit-monitoring company announced the changes in a press release that gave its most detailed public response to date of the discovery of the data breach on July 29 and the actions it has since taken.

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 Antidepressant use during pregnancy is tied to an increased risk of psychiatric illnesses, especially mood disorders, in children, according to a new study.

The overall risk is low, though. Only about 3 percent of the nearly 905,383 children in the study were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder by age 16.

But compared to the children of women who took antidepressants before pregnancy but not during, kids whose mothers continued taking the medications in pregnancy were 27 percent more likely to be diagnosed with mood, anxiety, behavioral or autism spectrum disorders.

Lead author Xiaoqin Liu, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Register-based Research at Aarhus University in Denmark, said the study is the first to look at a wide range of psychiatric disorders, instead of a single psychiatric illness, among children exposed to antidepressants in utero.
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The last dinner Wendy Dolin had with her husband, Stewart, he was so agitated that he was jiggling his leg under the table and could barely sit still. He had recently started a new antidepressant but still felt very anxious. “I don’t get it, Wen,” he said.

The next day, Mr. Dolin, a 57-year-old Chicago lawyer, paced up and down a train platform for several minutes and then threw himself in front of an oncoming train.
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Two key U.S. senators Monday sought detailed information from Equifax about the cyberbreach that potentially compromised the personal information of 143 million U.S. consumers.
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Federal accident investigators are poised to find that Tesla Inc.’s auto-driving system should share blame for a fatal 2016 crash in which a Model S sedan drove itself into the side of a truck.

The investigative staff of U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, in its first probe of the wave of autonomous driving systems being introduced by carmakers, has recommended that Tesla’s Autopilot system be declared a contributing factor in the crash because it allowed the driver to go for long periods without steering or apparently even looking at the road, according to a person briefed on the findings.
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Sept 11 (Reuters) - Medtronic Plc on Monday said that it would recall certain infusion sets used with all its insulin pumps due to a discontinued component.

The company said the component, a vent membrane, in the recalled infusion sets could be blocked by fluid during the process of priming, or removal of air bubbles. (Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D‘Souza)

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The credit reporting agency Equifax said Thursday that hackers gained access to sensitive personal data — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — for up to 143 million Americans, a major cybersecurity breach at a firm that serves as one of the three major clearinghouses for Americans’ credit histories.

Equifax said the breach began in May and continued until it was discovered in late July. It said hackers exploited a “website application vulnerability” and obtained personal data about British and Canadian consumers as well as Americans. Social Security numbers and birth dates are particularly sensitive data, giving those who possess them the ingredients for identity fraud and other crimes.

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(Reuters) - Equifax Inc, a provider of consumer credit scores, said on Thursday that personal details of as many as 143 million U.S. consumers were accessed by hackers between mid-May and July, in what could be one of the largest data breaches in the United States.

The company’s shares fell nearly 19 percent in after-market trading as investors reacted to possible consequences of the exposure of sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S.
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Roche’s Genentech is voluntarily recalling three lots of Activase (alteplase) 100mg vials, which were co-packaged with sterile water for injection, to the hospital level because of sterility issues, according to a Sep. 6, 2017 press release by FDA. The vials of sterile water for injection that were packaged with Activase 100 mg may be cracked or chipped at the neck of the vial and leaking. These vials were manufactured by Hospira, a Pfizer company which the drugmaker acquired for $17 billion in 2015.

The use of impacted sterile water for injection could result in adverse events such as fever, chills, phlebitis, and granuloma, or more severe adverse events such as sepsis or invasive systemic infections.
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The makers of the EpiPen failed to properly investigate more than 100 complaints that the device malfunctioned during life-threatening emergencies -- including situations in which patients later died, according to a Food and Drug Administration warning letter sent to a Pfizer company.

The FDA said in the letter that Meridian Medical Technologies, a Pfizer company that manufactures the auto-injectors used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, had detected faults in some units of the EpiPen and had failed to adequately respond.

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