Current Events

A damning attorney general’s report that showed Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials downplayed the deadly impact of COVID-19 on New York’s nursing homes finally led the state’s embattled health commissioner on Thursday to reveal the total number of resident fatalities.

In a defensive, nearly 1,700-word statement, Dr. Howard Zucker released figures that put the tally of confirmed and presumed deaths in both nursing homes and hospitals at 12,743 as of Jan. 19.
Read more . . .

Law360 (January 13, 2021, 12:33 PM EST) -- The insurance industry's hopes for sweeping national legislation that would shield businesses from most coronavirus-related lawsuits were likely dashed last week as Senate control swung to the Democrats, who have resisted such a measure, warning that it would erode legal protections for workers and consumers.

By flipping both of Georgia's Senate seats, Democrats and their two independent allies wrested control of the chamber from Republicans for the first time since 2014. According to experts, the shift in power is likely the death knell for Senate GOP members' broad proposed COVID-19 liability shield for corporations, schools, health care providers and other organizations.

Last year, Jessie Harrell went to see her gynecologist for a routine appointment. She’d been seeing Dr. Tim Baird for 14 years, ever since she showed up at the hospital in labor five weeks early. He’d been on call that morning, and she’d been reassured by his calm demeanor, even as he delivered her first child via an emergency cesarean section.

But this time, right before Harrell’s visit, a staff member in Dr.
Read more . . .

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A memory haunts Christina Fuhrman: the image of her toddler Pearl lying pale and listless in a hospital bed, tethered to an IV to keep her hydrated as she struggled against a superbug infection.

“She survived by the grace of God,” Fuhrman said of the illness that struck her oldest child in this central Missouri city almost five years ago. “She could’ve gone septic fast. Her condition was near critical.
Read more . . .

The largest for-profit nursing home operator in California took control of his first home in 2006 in a Los Angeles suburb that calls itself “the city of opportunity.” Over the next decade, he built a sprawling network of facilities from San Diego to the state’s northern coast.

The chain known as Brius Healthcare received more than $800 million from Medicare and Medicaid in 2018 to care for thousands of elderly residents in about 80 nursing homes. Instead of relying upon outside vendors, Brius pursued a business practice long used by a majority of for-profit nursing homes nationwide: paying related companies for goods, services and rent.

Read more . . .

In an unusually harsh and pointed report, a U.S. House subcommittee, responding to a ProPublica investigation, found widespread evidence that the nation’s largest manufacturers of car seats “endangered the lives of millions of American children and misled consumers about the safety of booster seats” in crashes that can kill or paralyze children.

On Friday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy upped the ante, formally requesting that federal highway safety regulators, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, investigate “unfair and deceptive marketing and unreasonable risks to safety” by the makers of booster seats. Separately, the subcommittee urged state attorneys general to look for violations of consumer protection laws by these companies.
Read more . . .

A patient wearing a face mask with a metal part was burned while undergoing an MRI exam – prompting the Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning about the potential dangers of using such coverings.

“The FDA received an injury report for a patient who was wearing a face mask with metal during a 3 Tesla MRI scan of the neck. The report describes burns to the patient’s face consistent with the shape of the face mask,” the FDA said in its alert Tuesday.

Read more here

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Volvo Cars is recalling 54,000 U.S. vehicles for an air bag defect after one crash death tied to the issue, according to a filing with U.S. regulators.
Read more . . .

Federal officials have announced a recall for a specific model of heart catheter made by Medtronic PLC that regulators said is responsible for one death and two injuries.

The action Tuesday involves 142 Rashkind balloon septostomy catheters that were distributed in the United States from May 2018 to August 2020.

"Quality issues ...

(CNN) -- Two lots of a widely used type 2 diabetes medication, metformin, are being recalled due to possible contamination with a potentially cancer-causing compound. Metformin is designed to lower glucose levels.

Nostrum Laboratories Inc., based in Kansas City, Missouri, announced Monday that it is voluntarily recalling its metformin HCl extended release tablets, USP 750 mg, according to a recall posted by the US Drug & Food Administration.

In early April the Trevecca Center for Rehabilitation & Healing in Nashville received an urgent call. At the time, Tennessee had only 3,000 coronavirus cases, compared with more than 100,000 in the state of New York. But the caller, the nursing director at a nearby kidney dialysis center, was worried. She said one of the home’s residents had been given a routine test before an appointment and had tested positive for the coronavirus. She said she believed that Trevecca, a 240-bed nursing home, might have an outbreak on its hands.
Read more . . .