Current Events

(Reuters) - Mylan NV said on Tuesday it would recall certain batches of blood pressure medicine valsartan in the United States after they were found to contain a probable cancer-causing impurity, the latest recall amid heightened safety concerns globally.

Shares of the company, which on Tuesday also disclosed a warning letter it received from the FDA earlier this month, fell nearly 2 percent to $33.91 after the bell.

The news comes a day after the European Union authorities stepped in to effectively ban sales of valsartan made by an India-based Mylan unit after some batches were found to contain the same impurity, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA).

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Quick quiz: which of the following 8 active Salmonella outbreaks listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website do you think will most affect Thanksgiving?

• Salmonella Infantis linked to raw chicken products
• Salmonella Newport linked to ground beef
• Salmonella Enteritidis linked to Gravel Ridge Farms shell eggs
• Salmonella I 4,[5]],12:i:- linked to chicken
• Salmonella Reading linked to raw turkey products
• Salmonella Enteritidis linked to pet guinea pigs
• Salmonella Agbeni with investigations into Duncan Hines cake mix
• Salmonella Typhimurium linked to clinical and teaching microbiology laboratory exposure

If you answered number 6, the one linked to guinea pigs, you may have very interesting Thanksgiving traditions.

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(CNN)The US Food and Drug Administration says another heart medicine is being voluntarily recalled after tests showed that it was tainted with a potential cancer-causing chemical.

The recall includes one lot of Sandoz's losartan potassium hydrochlorothiazide 100 milligram/25 milligram tablets with the lot number JB8912. Patients use these drugs to keep their high blood pressure in check.

The drug is being recalled because the active ingredient has tested positive for N-Nitrosodiethylamine or NDEA, a suspected human and animal carcinogen that is used in gasoline as a stabilizer for industry materials and as a lubricant additive, according to the National Institutes of Health.

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BULLETIN: Federal officials are reporting an 82 percent increase in the number of confirmed Salmonella infections in a nationwide outbreak traced to raw turkey. The CDC also confirmed the first outbreak-related death today.

Since the initial outbreak report on July 19 — when 90 people from 26 states had been confirmed with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Reading — another 74 people have been added to the case count. As of Nov. 5, 164 people from 35 states are laboratory confirmed as outbreak patients, according to this afternoon’s update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The U.S. government is taking a closer look at how to stop hackers from taking control of medical devices like pacemakers. An inspector general's report last month found the Food and Drug Administration's "plans and processes were deficient for addressing medical device cybersecurity compromises." The FDA disputes that and says it "has worked proactively" on the issue.

So far, neither government officials nor security experts have identified any incidents in which a computer hacker has harmed a patient through a medical device. But two cybersecurity researchers say those devices have massive vulnerabilities that make it easy for hackers to break in, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.

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(Reuters) - Novartis said on Thursday its Sandoz division was recalling one lot of losartan tablets after finding traces of a probable carcinogen in the blood pressure drug.

The drug is made by China’s Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. Last month, the European Medicines Agency placed the firm under high supervision after a probable carcinogen was found in its blood pressure drug valsartan.

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The maker of Ortho-Novum is recalling three lots of the popular birth control pill because they were packaged with inaccurate directions, the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals is voluntarily recalling one lot of Ortho-Novum 1/35 (norethindrone/ethinyl estradiol) tablets and two lots of Ortho-Novum 7/7/7 (norethindrone/ethinyl estradiol) tablets from pharmacies.

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The FDA has announced a Class I recall for 1.1 million packages of CoaguChek XS PT test strips used with point-of-care or in-home devices to adjust warfarin dosing.

The recall comes after certain test strips were revealed to overestimate patients’ actual International Normalized Ratio (INR), leading to an underuse of the blood-thinner. About 90 medical device reports and two patient injuries involving strokes have been reported, according to the FDA.

The strips were manufactured by Roche Diagnostics and were distributed nationwide between Jan. 12 and Oct. 29.

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Almost eight years after gaining statutory power to mandate food recalls, the FDA is officially publishing information to help industry understand when the agency will use its authority.

In a guidance document scheduled for publication in the Federal Register today, the Food and Drug Administration uses a question-answer format to explain how, when and why the government will force companies to recall food for people and animals.

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ARMENIA, Wis. — The groundwater that once ran cool and clean from taps in this Midwestern farming town is now laced with contaminants and fear. People refuse to drink it. They won’t brush their teeth with it. They dread taking showers.

Rural communities call it their own, private Flint— a diffuse, creeping water crisis tied to industrial farms and slack regulations that for years has tainted thousands of residential wells across the Midwest and beyond.

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Federal officials for weeks have been on the hunt for the underlying source of a bacterial contaminant in raw chicken that has sickened more than 90 people in 29 states, 11 percent of them identified in New York.

A multi-drug resistant bacterium — Salmonella infantis — has cropped up in a wide range of chicken products. The bacteria are capable of repelling 13 major antibiotics, which makes illnesses caused by the microbes tougher to treat.

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