Current Events

SHANGHAI/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Health agencies are investigating an outbreak of bloodstream infections in children from four U.S. states that may be linked to heparin and saline syringes made by Becton Dickinson and Co, the agencies told Reuters. The U.S.
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It seems like a common convenience in a digital age: a car that can be powered on and off with the push of a button, rather than the mechanical turning of a key. But it is a convenience that can have a deadly effect.

On a summer morning last year, Fred Schaub drove his Toyota RAV4 into the garage attached to his Florida home and went into the house with the wireless key fob, evidently believing the car was shut off. Twenty-nine hours later, he was found dead, overcome with carbon monoxide that flooded his home while he slept.

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There is tremendous controversy about a surgical device implanted in more than two million American women. It's a strip of plastic called gynecological mesh. The manufacturers and several medical societies say the implant is safe. But more than 100,000 women are suing. And together, they make up the largest multi-district litigation since asbestos.
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The nationwide food poisoning outbreak from E. coli-tainted romaine lettuce has spread to 29 states and sickened 149 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

A recent spate of infections linked to romaine lettuce is now the largest multistate food-borne E. coli outbreak since 2006, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Anthony Bonomo, the prolific Democratic donor and former head of the state’s second largest medical malpractice insurance company, diverted millions of dollars to himself and business partners while covering up the insurer’s growing losses, according to a $300 million lawsuit filed in Nassau County.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, builds on an investigation conducted by the state Department of Financial Services, which ousted Bonomo from Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers last summer.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday it was reviewing Acadia Pharmaceuticals’ Parkinson’s medication, the only approved drug used to treat hallucinations and delusions associated with the disease.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 31 more people have fallen ill in an E. coli outbreak tied to romaine lettuce.

Federal health officials expanded their E. coli warning to all types of romaine lettuce from the Yuma, Arizona, region as they investigate the nationwide outbreak affecting dozens of people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people in Alaska reported getting sick after eating whole heads of romaine lettuce from Yuma.
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(Reuters Health) - Cigarette smoking sharply increases the risk of heart failure in black men and women in the U.S., according to a new study.

“These findings suggest if you have heart failure or you have risk factors for heart failure such as early markers for heart damage like a thicker heart or a weak heart, you should specifically be targeted for smoking cessation strategies,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Michael E.
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Allergan will pay $3.5 million to resolve claims it sold defective stomach bands intended to help obese adults lose weight and marketed them for procedures that were not reasonable or necessary, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday.

The settlement resolved claims raised in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in federal court in Baltimore against Allergan, which sold its Lap-Band product business to Apollo Endosurgery Inc in 2013.

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