Current Events

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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Nearly three dozen people have been infected in an E. coli outbreak linked to chopped romaine lettuce from the Yuma, Ariz., region, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

The agency said that it had not yet identified a grower, supplier, distributor or brand common to the 35 cases of infection across 11 states, so it urged consumers to avoid any chopped romaine lettuce from the Yuma area.

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A company has recalled more than 200 million eggs after an outbreak of salmonella was traced to one of its farms in North Carolina.

The federal Food and Drug Administration reported Friday that eggs from the affected farm were distributed to nine states — Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia — and were likely connected to 22 reported cases of salmonella infections.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A $117 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson and a supplier in favor of a man who said his asbestos-related cancer was caused by long-term use of J&J’s Baby Powder could open a new front for thousands of cases claiming the widely-used product caused cancer, legal experts and plaintiffs lawyers said.

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Danger lurks for hospital patients in a place they probably don’t expect it — their bed.

Hospitals claim to disinfect beds in between patients. Don’t believe it. Data from four New York hospitals prove beds are full of germs. Patients are nearly six times as likely to come down with staph, strep or another dangerous infection if the patient who used the bed before them had it.
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Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares tumbled to their lowest level in four years after a CNN report raised questions about whether its lead treatment played a role in the deaths of already sick and elderly patients.

CNN cited an analysis by a nonprofit health-care organization that found 244 deaths involving patients on Nuplazid, which treats hallucinations and psychosis associated with Parkinson’s disease, in the first nine months after its 2016 introduction. The drug was also named in several hundred “adverse events reports” -- which include side effects and other issues -- to the U.S.
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The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it is restricting the sale and distribution of Essure, a controversial contraceptive device that some patient advocates want taken off the market. Only health-care providers and facilities that guarantee women have been told about the device's risks in advance will be allowed to implant it.

Using what it called “a unique type of restriction,” the FDA said providers must first review a brochure with patients that lists Essure's risks. The patient then must be given the opportunity to sign the document, and the physician implanting the device will be required to sign it.

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DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government's road safety agency says it has received allegations that defective Goodyear motor-home tires caused crashes that killed or injured 95 people during the past two decades.

The allegations were revealed in an information-seeking letter dated Tuesday that was sent to Goodyear by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency began investigating whether the company's G159 tires are unsafe last year after a judge ordered the release of Goodyear data that had been sealed under court orders and settlement agreements.
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(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) suffered its first trial loss in a lawsuit claiming its talc-based products including Johnson’s Baby Powder contain cancer-causing asbestos, with a New Jersey jury on Thursday ordering J&J and another company to pay $37 million in damages.

Washington — Detroit automakers will receive $182.3 million from the restitution fund the former Takata Corp. established as part of its guilty plea for producing millions of defective air-bag inflators that can explode with deadly force.

The United States District Court in the Eastern District Of Michigan said Tuesday that General Motors Co. will receive $86.
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It’s fast becoming the go-to drug for addicts in search of a stronger high — and it is not even an opioid.

Gabapentin, a purportedly nonaddictive painkiller primarily used to treat shingles and control seizures, has landed on the radar of beleaguered health officials and law enforcement already battling the deadly opioid epidemic that has ripped through the Rust Belt and claimed thousands of lives across the country.

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