Blog

2012-01-24
This winter, stay warm—and stay safe
As the mercury drops in these wintry weeks, many people are firing up their heaters. Increasing the temperature shouldn’t increase your risk, though. The U.S. Product Safety Commission has put out a list of recalled heaters and other winter-weather-related products. The Meijer Touch Point Oscillating Ceramic Heater, for example, poses a fire hazard because its oscillating mechanism can short out. Flow Pro, Airtech, Aloha Breeze & Comfort Essentials Heaters—of which more than 2 million were recalled last month—can break down, causing overheating, smoking, burning, melting and fire. And Honeywell Electric Baseboard and Fan Heater Thermostats represent a burn risk because
2012-01-17
Doctor fails to diagnose girl’s cancer; court upholds parents’ right to sue
When it comes to life-threatening illness, treatment time lost means survival chances lost. If a doctor fails to diagnose a serious condition early, the loss to the patient and her family can be devastating; if the doctor should have been able to make the early diagnosis, the loss deserves compensation. One court recently recognized that. The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that the parents of a five-year-old girl with cancer may sue a doctor that they allege failed to diagnose their daughter early enough. A bump was visible on the girl’s body from her birth, but the
2012-01-12
Electrical hazard: Hybrid cars can be faulty, too
Just because it’s electric, doesn’t mean it can’t be defective. The entire run of the new “Karma” plug-in hybrid is being recalled due to a fire hazard. Fisker, the Karma’s manufacturer, said in a report it filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that improper positioning of some of the cars’ hose clamps could result in coolant leaking into the battery compartment, causing an electrical short and, “in the worst case,” sparking a fire. Makers of plain old gas-fueled cars are still making dangerous mistakes too. General Motors recently recalled nearly 4,300 Chevrolet Sonics of the 2012 model year
2012-01-03
Hazards of metal on metal hip implants greater than recall let on
When healthcare-product manufacturer DePuy issued a recall of its ASR hip-replacement implant last year, the company cited the device’s high failure rate; data from the National Joint Registry of England and Wales had just revealed that 12 percent to 13 percent of patients required a “revision surgery,” or second hip-replacement procedure. What DePuy didn’t mention were the other serious complications patients were experiencing—and continue to experience. The ASR implant was metal on metal, meaning both the ball and the socket of its bearings were made of metal. In metal on metal implants that are poorly engineered—as the ASR implant was—the
2011-12-27
Transvaginal mesh makers to be put on trial
Victims of the dangerous medical device transvaginal mesh will finally have their day in court: More than 350 lawsuits against transvaginal-mesh manufacturers were recently set to be heard together in New Jersey next year. That’s just a sampling of the scores of women who have been harmed by the device and are seeking to bring its manufacturers to account. Transvaginal mesh is a surgical implant used to treat pelvic organ prolapse, a condition in which a woman’s uterus, bladder or rectum slips out of place. The FDA approved the implant through its controversial “fast-track” process in 2002 and by 2008
2011-12-20
Broken bones, broken trust: Fosamax victims sue drugmakers
More than 1,500 users of the medication Fosamax are suing the drug’s manufacturer, Merck, claiming that the drug, which is prescribed to treat bone weakening in post-menopausal women, in fact causes bone-density loss if taken for an extended period. Mounting evidence links long-term use of Fosamax to atraumatic femur fractures—breakages of the thighbone that occur without exposure to trauma (e.g., femur fractures that happen while a person is just walking). Fosamax has also been connected to osteonecrosis, a.k.a. jaw death, a condition in which the tissue of the jawbone deteriorates, causing the gums to fall away and expose bone that
2011-12-13
Outpatient clinics take hospitals’ place as source of infection concern
The good news is, hospitals are improving at not spreading dangerous bacteria and viruses to patients. The bad news? Outpatient clinics—where an increasing number of patients are seeking care because the clinics are typically cheaper and more convenient than hospitals—are getting worse. Outpatient clinics are not as tightly regulated or closely inspected as hospitals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the past decade more than 125,000 outpatient-clinic patients had to be notified of potential exposure to disease from unsafe injection practices alone. That’s particularly concerning for the more than one million cancer patients who receive chemotherapy
2011-12-06
Stop, park and roll: Investigation into vehicle defect widened
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has expanded an inquiry into a potential defect in Saturn Aura sedans that lets the vehicles’ automatic transmission remain in gear when the gear selector shows “Park.” The agency last May launched an investigation of 44,000 Auras from the 2007 model year. On November 14, it expanded it to 2008-year models and the 2008 Aura hybrid, bringing the total number of cars affected to almost 89,000. The NHTSA has received seven reports of incidents related to this issue. In one, a car that had been apparently put into Park moved and struck a building.
2011-11-29
Fatal attraction: Desktop magnet sets pose hidden danger to kids
If you’ve been in a fair number of offices, you’ve seen them: desktop ornaments and stress relievers consisting of high-powered magnets (The magnets look like ball bearings). These products are often made up of as many as 200 magnets—Would you notice if a few went missing around your kids? Since 2009, the parents of 22 children who swallowed the magnets haven’t. And when two or more high-powered magnets are ingested, they can attract each other internally, resulting in severe injuries such as holes in the stomach, intestinal blockage and even death. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has received an increasing