Current Events

Sanofi Pasteur, one the world's leading vaccine makers, had a potentially serious and costly problem on its hands: Its Monroe County plant discovered tiny pieces of glass in batches of a vaccine intended for babies.

The glass was first detected in April 2013 in samples of a vaccine that had already been distributed to customers and which would not expire until September 2014.

Sanofi sent the samples to an outside laboratory for analysis. The lab found evidence of delamination — which occurs when vaccine vials shed flakes of glass called lamellae.

The health risks posed to any individual by vaccine vial delamination are widely believed to be minuscule.
Read more . . .

Dementia patients who get prescriptions from multiple health systems may face a higher risk of drug mix-ups or unsafe interactions than people with cognitive problems who get all their medications from one place, a study of U.S. veterans suggests.

Researchers examined data on more than 75,000 veterans with dementia and found that among patients who received all of their care at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities, 39 percent had potential safety issues with prescribed medications.

Among those who got some care at the VA and some treatment elsewhere, however, 59 percent had possible drug safety issues, the study found.
Read more . . .

Antibiotics and narcotics are often prescribed when they aren’t the best option for patients and may do more harm than good, a survey of U.S. physicians suggests.

The survey asked doctors to identify treatments that they see routinely used despite guidelines recommending against the interventions and little or no value for patients.

Overuse of antibiotics topped the list, with 27 percent of doctors identifying this as a common problem.
Read more . . .

Nothing is sacred.
Just a couple weeks after Sabra recalled its hummus for possible listeria contamination, Trader Joe’s is doing the same.

The grocery store’s hummus manufacturer, Bakkavor Foods USA, voluntarily recalled Trader Joe’s Mediterranean and White Bean & Basil hummus after finding traces of the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes on its equipment, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

This bacterium leads to Listerios, a severe infection known to cause fever, muscle aches, and gastrointestinal problems. Customers are advised not to eat any products with “Use By” dates up through and including Dec.
Read more . . .

Americans for Insurance Reform, a coalition of nearly 100 consumer and public interest groups representing more than 50 million people, has published two new studies of the medical malpractice insurance industry. The studies were written by AIR co-founders J. Robert Hunter, Director of Insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, and Joanne Doroshow, Executive

Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy.

Major finding are as follows:

Stable Losses/Unstable Rates 2016.

•  When adjusted for medical care inflation, both premiums and claims per physician are currently at their lowest level in four decades.
  Read more . . .
  
  

At first, Vincent Karst, 55, was recovering well from his open-heart surgery in March 2015.

He resumed the activities he enjoyed, such as visiting car shows and eating out. But some months later, his condition mysteriously deteriorated. By fall he was so short of breath, nauseated and overwhelmed by fatigue that he needed to be rehospitalized in York, Pa.

There, doctors diagnosed a new problem: a serious mycobacterial infection that was acquired during his surgery, according to his subsequent lawsuit.
Read more . . .

Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a Texas jury to pay more than $1 billion to patients who claimed the company hid flaws in its Pinnacle artificial hips that had to be surgically removed, in J&J’s second loss linked to the implants. 

Officials of J&J’s DePuy unit, which makes the Pinnacle hips, knew the devices were defective, but failed to properly warn doctors and patients about the risk they would fail, the federal jury in Dallas concluded Thursday. The verdict includes more than $30 million in actual damages for the six plaintiffs and more than $1 billion in punitive damages, according to court filings.

J&J still faces almost 9,000 lawsuits accusing the company of mishandling the metal-on-metal hips. J&J stopped selling the devices in 2013 after the U.
Read more . . .

The Obama administration is pressing U.S. states to curb insurers' use of fine print in contracts that bars unsatisfied customers from suing, taking the latest step against "mandatory arbitration clauses" in an insurance report released by the Treasury Department on Monday.The federal government does not regulate insurance companies or products. Each state has its own oversight process.
Read more . . .

Sorry, hummus lovers: Sabra Dipping Company is voluntarily recalling many of its hummus products because of possible Listeria contamination.

The company has identified Listeria monocytogenes at one of its manufacturing facilities, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Saturday in a press release. However, the bacteria has yet to be found in its tested finished products.
Read more . . .

Following a record-strength earthquake in September, residents of Pawnee, Okla., hope legal action will compensate them for injuries and property damage.

Weitz & Luxenberg, a New York-based consumer protection firm, is bringing a class action lawsuit on behalf of affected residents. The firm announced on Friday that it will sue more than a dozen energy companies in district court.

Read more . . .

British Petroleum and its former subsidiary Arco will pay $14 million to settle a lawsuit over allegations that they failed to properly inspect and maintain underground storage tanks at nearly 800 gas stations around the state, prosecutors said Thursday.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris and eight district attorneys around the state, including Alameda County’s Nancy O’Malley, said the oil companies have violated 71 different state regulations for dealing with hazardous materials going back to 2006.

The violations included tampering with leak detection devices and alarms, failing to tell local officials about releases from the tanks, having no evacuation plans at gas stations and dumping hazardous waste into trash containers, according to the lawsuit, filed in 2013 in Alameda County.

Harris and local prosecutors filed a similar suit around the same time against ConocoPhillips and its affiliate, Phillips 66. The company settled in 2015 for $11.
Read more . . .