Current Events

Japanese auto parts maker Takata Corp. has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, and agreed to pay $1 billion for concealing a defect in millions of its air bag inflators.

The decision played out in a federal courtroom in Detroit on Monday, following a deal with the U.S. Justice Department.
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Pfizer Inc. received a warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after inspectors found “significant violations” at a manufacturing plant for drugs made by its Hospira unit.

The inspection, conducted over about three weeks in May and June last year at a McPherson, Kansas, drug plant, found “significant violations of current good manufacturing practice” rules, according to a Feb.
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(Reuters Health) - Pacemakers may fail to properly regulate patients’ heartbeats near certain appliances and tools that generate electric and magnetic fields, a German study suggests.

Researchers tested how electric and magnetic fields impact pacemakers, small battery-operated devices that help patients’ hearts beat in a regular rhythm, for 119 people under different conditions.

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Vehicles Affected: Approximately 5,500 model-year 2017 Volvo XC90 SUVs, S90 sedans and V90 Cross Country wagons
The Problem: The bolts that secure the inflatable curtain airbags in place may break, possibly resulting in the airbag deploying improperly in a crash and increasing the risk of an injury.

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Feb 27 A federal judge has certified a class-action lawsuit accusing the big U.S. debt collector Midland Funding LLC of violating New York usury laws by charging thousands of struggling borrowers interest rates above 25 percent when trying to collect.

Monday's decision by U.S.
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DETROIT -- Japanese auto supplier Takata, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, pleaded guilty Monday as a corporation in federal court, agreed to a $1 billion plea deal and told a federal judge its behavior over a 15-year period was "deeply inappropriate."

Takata, a 70-year-old supplier of airbags, seatbelts and other safety equipment to nearly every global automaker, made airbags that have been tied to 17 deaths globally. The potentially defective airbags, which can spray shrapnel into the faces of occupants when they activate, are on more than 42 million vehicles worldwide. Its headquarters is in Tokyo but its U.S.
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If anything about driverless cars can be considered an old riddle it is this one: the car is driving itself down a residential street when a woman pushing a baby stroller suddenly enters a crosswalk. Unable to stop, should the car’s computer opt to hit mother and child, or veer off to strike a tree, almost certainly killing its passengers?

That macabre scenario has been fodder for ethicists almost since the prospect that cars might drive themselves first entered the horizon. It also, however, provides a second riddle: Regardless of the choice made by the car’s computer, who pays for the damages?

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Rising infections caused by a type of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics is causing longer hospitalizations and may mean a higher risk of death for children in the United States, according to a new study.

The study, published this week in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, found that 3 out of 5 children admitted to hospitals already had an antibiotic-resistant infection — suggesting these infections are spreading more often in the community.

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One of the city’s top hospitals is gouging patients for copies of their medical records — charging them twice what the law allows, according to a new class-action lawsuit.

The illegal move, which potentially affects thousands of patients, came to light when 72-year-old retiree Vicky Ortiz sought copies of her records from NewYork–Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, her Manhattan Supreme Court suit says.

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What’s the biggest killer in hospitals? Secrecy. That’s the takeaway from the feds — specifically, the Government Accountability Office and the Food and Drug Administration.

Both agencies report that hospitals are failing to disclose when medical devices injure or kill patients by spreading cancer cells throughout their bodies or infecting them with superbugs. Federal regulation requires hospitals and doctors to notify the FDA of these “adverse events” immediately, but that regulation often goes ignored.

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BMW will be issuing a recall for over 19,000 i3 REx (range-extended) cars towards the beginning of April due to concerns about fuel vapors potentially starting fires, according to recent reports.

The issue, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is that the BMW i3 REx’s fuel tank can rub up against the wire protection sleeve of the battery-positive cable (which is ribbed), and that over time the vent line may wear and lead to the formation of a hole, which fuel vapors could then enter the engine compartment through.

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