The Supreme Court recently ruled in the case of Wyeth v. Levine that state failure to warn claims are not pre-empted by federal drug labeling laws. It has been suggested that this ruling indicates a major shift away from protection of business by the Supreme Court. Some suggest this clears the way for the proposed legislation granting similar rights to patients who use Class III medical devices. Proponents of the new legislation say that the FDA is woefully understaffed and therefore there is not adequate protection for the consumer offered by proper FDA investigation of products.
April 2009 Archives
There is increasing evidence that MRI scans could pose safety issues for consumers who use nicotine or other drug delivering patches according to the Food and Drug Administration. Apparently, small metal fragments are in several of the patches and can become heated during the scans which creates significant risks of burns. The FDA has issued several alerts about this potential complication. If you are having an MRI make sure to be very careful about any metal that has been inserted in your body from prior surgery or any foreign material attached to your body for any reason. As helpful as an MRI can be as a diagnostic tool, it can also pose significant safety risks depending on circumstances.
Several lawsuits have alleged that two medical device companies are intertwined with a doctor named in over 100 medical malpractice case. The allegation is that the company actually paid the osteopath for using their products. The allegation suggests that the medical devices had questionable medical benefits. The doctor's employer apparently paid 100 million dollars to settle similar lawsuits.
According to the Inspector general of the Transportation department, airports that account for over 25% of air travel in the United States may not meet some proposed federal standards to stop runaway airplanes. These include Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington. Safety concerns have heightened about runaway planes as a result of recent incidents.
