Posted on July 30,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

As a patient, you expect that you'll be safe every time you enter a doctor's office or operating room. In some cases, you're handing over your life to the doctors and medical professionals responsible for your care. The newest craze in medicine is the use of robots, generally managed by physicians themselves. When accidents happen, however, it can become necessary to meet with an Illinois personal injury attorney for representation. Unfortunately, errors in robotic surgery are just as common, and can have serious impacts on the patients involved.

That was certainly the case for Oregon's Heidi Carlson, who felt months of pain in her abdomen and hip after her September 2012 hysterectomy. The robot system used in her surgery was developed by da Vinci surgical system. After her procedure was complete, Carlson started experiencing serious pain in her hip and notified her doctor.

Her physician directed her to complete physical therapy, acupuncture, and even injections, but none of these fixes stopped her pain. After several months of Carlson insisting that the pain was still bothering her, the doctor finally arranged for a CT scan. The scan uncovered the source of her discomfort: a pen tip sized piece of metal that was left behind in the surgery process. The metal piece was grinding against her hip, resulting in serious and ongoing pain for the patient.

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 Posted on July 25,2013 in FDA

Two products extremely popular for use in dialysis treatments, NaturaLyte and GranuFlo, were created by Fresenius Medical Care Holdings. These products have been named in numerous lawsuits recently, since there are side effects that can lead to serious medical problems and conditions for patients getting dialysis treatment. If you have been the victim of a defective medical device or medical malpractice, you need to speak with a personal injury attorney.

Unfortunately, many lives around the country are destroyed by the mistakes made in medicine. The outcome of a defective medical device complication may impact the life of the patient and his or her loved ones for the remainder of the patient's life.

Plaintiffs in the cases have alleged that the company failed to label and warn patients about the implications of the products. Some of the reported issues included strokes, heart attacks, sudden cardiac deaths, and cardio-pulmonary arrest. Patients seeking assistance with dialysis may have seen an improvement in their original conditions only to suffer from serious side effects of NaturaLyte and GranuFlo.

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 Posted on July 23,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

Hip replacements are one of the most common and yet complicated bone revision surgeries a patient can undergo. According to the University of Missouri Medical Center, “the ideal time for surgery is when other measures, such as medicines, exercise, weight loss, and alternative therapies no longer work.” A hip replacement should be undergone only when hip pain causes a limp and interferes with the enjoyment or ability to complete everyday activities. The University of Missouri Medical Center reports that while neither a metal nor a plastic hip replacement can fully “replicated the complexity, intricate engineering, and healing ability of the human body,” replacement joints, either metal or plastic, are indeed feats of modern science and can, in most cases, bring the patient back to near-full mobility. “Many patients,” the Center states, “experience complete resolution of their pre-surgery pain and discomfort.”

And yet despite these many optimistic benefits, hip replacements are among some of the recalled products in the medical world. In March 2013, according to the New York Times, a Los Angeles jury “ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay more than $8.3 million in damages to a Montana man in the first of more than 10,000 lawsuits pending against the medical products maker in connection with a now-recalled artificial hip.” Another replacement hip manufacturer came under fire this summer when a Chicago woman, according to Chicago CBS Local, became one of hundreds of patients to sue Stryker Medical Devices for a different type of faulty hip replacement.

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 Posted on July 20,2013 in Drugs

At the end of June, medical drug manufacturer Fresenius Kabi issued a “voluntary, user-level product recall of 4 lots of benztropine mesylate injection,” according to ModernMedicine.com. The drug is used in several different types of Parkinson's therapy, in addition to the control of “extrapyramidal disorders due to neuroleptic drugs,” according to ModernMedicine. While no consumers have yet to file a suit against the company, the manufacturer recalled the product because of the risk that there were glass particles in the vials, which are injected into patients. Each vial is a 2mL single dose, meaning that several thousands of patients could be affected. “Customers who received the recalled vials are being notified and instructed to return any unused product to Fresenius Kabi USA,” according to ModernMedicine.com.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which monitors all product recalls in several different consumer areas, reports that the first ship date of any of the recalled vials was in May 2012. According to the FDA, “the administration of a glass particulate,” such as that which could be present in the recalled vials, “if present in a paranatal drug, poses a potential safety risk to patients.” These risks can be as dangerous as pulmonary emboli, a life-threatening condition. According to the FDA, “there have also been reports in the literature of particulate possibly causing phlebitis, mechanical lock of the capillaries or arterioles, activation of platelets, subsequent generation of microthrombi, and emboli.” Any patients with a preexisting medical condition (such as Parkinson's) would be at a greater risk for contracting one of these subsequent conditions possible because of vial contamination.

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 Posted on July 16,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

The latest concern to rip though the field of medical devices is regarding the security placed within those devices. Recent pranks have demonstrated that it's extremely easy to hack into these devices and alter the controls, presenting a safety risk to the patients depending on these defective medical devices. The Center For Internet Security is a nonprofit group that provides advice to government agencies and private companies, and the group has announced the development of guidelines for medical device manufacturers to consider in the development and refinement of their products.

The goal of the report is to help manufacturers reduce malfunctions coming from computer viruses and to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the data connected to these devices. With some simple protection tips, individuals using critical machines can feel safer about the devices they use every day. The organization has requested information and cooperation from hospitals and medical professionals around the country in the development of these guidelines.

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 Posted on July 12,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

Pain medication is given to patients to relieve pain and to make patient care better. At times, medical devices are implanted in a patient's body that administers pain medication and can be regulated by the physician if necessary. This is beneficial to the person because it removes the concern of missing the time to take the medication or the possibility of taking the wrong dosage. But, when these implanted medical devices don't work properly, a patient's health becomes compromised.

The FDA recently recalled two such pumps: Medtronic SynchroMed II and SynchroMed EL Implantable Drug Infusion Pumps. The reported reason was for a potential short in the electrical wiring of the device. This short in the electrical currency could cause the devices to stall which could lead to a drop in the administration of medications. If this were to happen, a patient's could also experience withdrawal symptoms and or their symptoms of the underlying condition could return. This reduction in pain therapy could adversely affect the patient's health, which could lead to death.

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 Posted on July 06,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

Respironics, a subsidiary of Phillips, has recently received the FDA's highest-risk label for a recall that has affected over 19,000 V60 ventilators. These ventilators were pulled due to potentially dangerous power management software.

These V60 ventilators are used to aid with breathing in the hospital or at home for those patients who face “respiratory failure, chronic respiratory insufficiency, or obstructive sleep apnea.” The devices got the Class 1 status recall due to a “situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”

California-based Respironics originally recalled its V60 ventilators when they discovered a major issue with their power management software. The devices were often shutting down suddenly, which ends the flow of ventilator support to a patient, without sounding any sort of alarm.

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 Posted on July 02,2013 in Birth Defects

Recently, the FDA has approved the return of a prescription medicine used to treat morning sickness during pregnancy that was taken off the market about 30 years ago after leading to hundreds of lawsuits that claimed it led to birth defects.

The pill that has been brought back from the dead was called Bendectin in the past, but will now be sold as Diclegis. The FDA never actually stated that the pill was unsafe, but the pharmaceutical company who distributed the pill decided to pull it once the litigation costs outweighed profit.

During the time Bendectin was on the market, over 300 lawsuits were filed against Merrell Dow, the company behind it. These various lawsuits claimed that the drug led to babies being born with deformities. However, no direct link was made between Bendectin and the birth defects it supposedly caused. There was no scientific evidence.

When Bendectin was pulled off the market, The New York Times had something to say about the ordeal:

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 Posted on June 30,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

More often now than ever before, high school students are graduating and entering into colleges and universities without any idea of what they would like to study or what they want to do with the rest of their lives. As time seeds out those who are not meant for college-life, there are very few students left in comparison when it is time to enter graduate school .

Not only did Andrew Murtha make it through undergraduate school and continue on for a graduate degree from Saint Louis University, but he has also already become the winner of the 48th annual Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Student Research Forum at SLU before completing his second year of medical school.

Murtha plans to specialize in orthopedic medicine and was given an opportunity at SLU to develop an artificial hip that should reduce complications after operations, which won him the prestigious award.

Riya Anandwala from SLU reported on the project, writing that in his research, Murtha discovered “that using a thinner plastic liner to accommodate larger femoral head, which replaces the highest part of the bone in the thigh, did not increase the risk of fracturing the liner.” That research was the answer for previous issues that arose after surgery due to larger femoral heads.

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 Posted on June 28,2013 in Defective Medical Devices

Defective medical equipment can serious injury those who need the products, especially in the case of diabetic monitoring devices. Diabetes is when the body does not process the food properly – glucose (sugar) cannot be converted to energy for the body to use. Some conditions can go unnoticed if not tested by a blood sugar meter. If untreated, it can cause short term problems such as hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, or diabetic ketoacidosis. However, long terms issues affecting blood vessels and organs can cause the body to shut down – possibly leading to blindness, amputation of limbs, or organ failure. To help a diabetes patient monitor and keep track of their blood sugar level, a blood glucose meter is a daily instrument for survival.

FreeStyle InsuLinx Blood Glucose Meters sold or distributed between the dates of April 18, 2012 and April 1, 2013 are being recalled, according to the FDA. These meters prick blood from the fingertip to then be placed on the monitor to test blood sugar levels. These machines are being recalled because they are not giving users correct results.

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