Current Events

More than ⅔ of medical device makers believe their products are vulnerable to cyberattack, but less than ⅕ are taking significant steps to do anything about it, according to a survey funded by software firm Synopsys.

Read More

A state court jury in Philadelphia on Friday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $2.16 million to a Pennsylvania woman who claimed she suffered injuries due to pelvic mesh devices manufactured by the company's Ethicon unit.

Read More

A prominent Boston neurosurgeon was illegally forced out of his previous job at a New York hospital for strongly objecting to a policy that allowed another surgeon to perform complex spine surgeries on two patients simultaneously, a judge ruled.

Double-booking, as the practice is sometimes called, triggered a fierce dispute among doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in recent years, leading to the 2015 dismissal of an orthopedic surgeon who opposed it. But Dr. James Holsapple may be the first doctor to win a lawsuit alleging he faced retaliation for challenging the practice.

Read more . . .

The legal battle over the deadly flaws in Takata airbags moved a step closer to resolution on Thursday when four automakers agreed to compensate owners of recalled cars.

Under a proposed settlement in a class-action case, Toyota, BMW, Subaru and Mazda are set to pay a total of $553 million to current and former owners and lessees of 15.8 million vehicles. The money is meant to reimburse them for car rentals or other expenses — like lost wages, towing charges or child care — incurred while waiting for their cars to be repaired.

Both sides of Wells Fargo & Co.’s $142 million settlement over its fake-accounts scandal made last-ditch efforts to salvage the class-action pact after a federal judge voiced misgivings about some of its terms.

Lawyers for the bank and customers submitted new information late Wednesday in an attempt to address U.S District Judge Vince Chhabria’s concerns that the deal shortchanges consumers and gives the lender protection from other legal claims.

Read more . . .

Davis Cripe left home April 26 an active and healthy teenage boy, but in art class that afternoon he fell to his knees and told worried classmates that he felt lightheaded.

He passed out on the floor and was rushed to a nearby hospital. By 3:30 p.m., around the time the final bell rang at school, he was dead.
Read more . . .

By the end of December, a lethal bacterium had swept through UC Irvine Medical Center’s intensive care unit, sickening seven infants. Dr. Susan Huang, the hospital’s infection control expert, had a plan.

The strategy — which she had promoted so successfully that most U.S.
Read more . . .

When Medicare was facing an impossible $13 trillion funding gap, Congress opted for a bold fix: It handed over part of the program to insurance companies, expecting them to provide better care at a lower cost. The new program was named Medicare Advantage.

Nearly 15 years later, a third of all Americans who receive some form of Medicare have chosen the insurer-provided version, which, by most accounts, has been a success.

Read more . . .

 The Supreme Court sided with a Kentucky nursing home Monday in a case challenging the use of forced arbitration agreements in nursing home admissions.

In a 7-1 ruling, the justices said the lower court violated the Federal Arbitration Act when it declined to give effect to the agreements Beverly Wellner and Janis Clark had signed with power of attorney on behalf of their relatives.

Read More

Raylene Hollrah was 33, with a young daughter, when she learned she had breast cancer. She made a difficult decision, one she hoped would save her life: She had her breasts removed, underwent grueling chemotherapy and then had reconstructive surgery.

In 2013, six years after her first diagnosis, cancer struck again — not breast cancer, but a rare malignancy of the immune system — caused by the implants used to rebuild her chest.

Read more . . .

Fiat Chrysler said early Friday that it would recall more than 1.25 million Ram pickup trucks to fix a software bug that could cause certain airbags and seatbelts to fail in rollover crashes.

The automaker said it had identified two crashes involving one death and two injuries that could be connected to the error.

Read more . . .