According to Bloomberg, Johnson & Johnson continued selling a vaginal mesh implant for nine months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to stop.
In a letter from August, 2007, the FDA told Johnson & Johnson to halt sales of Gynecare Prolift until the agency decided whether the device was “substantially equivalent” to other products on the market. The letter cited the “potential high risk for organ perforation” ...
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GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $3 billion in fines for fraudulently promoting medications for unapproved uses. According to a New York Times report, it’s the largest settlement ever leveled against a pharmaceutical company.
But the settlement doesn’t end the company’s legal disputes. Widespread lawsuits allege that GlaxoSmithKline and other manufacturers of antidepressants classified as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors failed to adequately warn pregnant patients of studies linking the drugs to continue reading...
Use of metal-on-metal hip implants has been declining in recent years, in response to concerns that they may pose a safety risk for patients who receive them.
According to a Bloomberg report, use of the devices peaked in 2006 and 2007, when the metal-on-metal variety accounted for an estimated 30 percent of the market. Now the all-metal implant, with both a ...
continue reading...An editorial in the Newark Star-Ledger calls for Gov. Chris Christie to sign into law a bill that passed in the New Jersey legislature, banning the state from treating and disposing of the toxic waste produced by the natural gas extraction process called “hydraulic fracturing,” or “fracking.”
Christie signed a one-year ban on fracking in New Jersey last summer, buying time until the federal Environmental Protection Agency completes two studies.
The editorial points out that the ban is largely symbolic, since no ...
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U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York is calling for a nationwide effort to combat the problem of babies born addicted to prescription painkillers or other opiates, known as Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS).
In a news release on the issue, Schumer cites a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which found that approximately 3.4 of every 1,000 infants born in 2009 suffered from NAS. That amounts ...
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Women are more likely than males to take antidepressants, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That information was part of the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys for the years 2005 to 2008.
Among the findings:
