Why Are My Heart and Blood Pressure Medications Being Recalled?
In July 2018, several drug companies started recalling dozens of lots of heart and blood medications – specifically valsartan, losartan, and irbesartan – after tests found the drugs had trace amounts of impurities and carcinogens. These recalls have been ongoing into early 2019. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently investigating the underlying causes…
Read MoreAmbulance Diversion is Medical Negligence
When you are in the throes of an emergency medical condition such as a heart attack or a stroke, you want an ambulance to arrive quickly, and take you to the nearest hospital for treatment. Thanks to the quietly-kept practice of ambulance diversion, you may not get the help you need in time. Ambulance diversion…
Read MoreUber and Lyft Want to Take You to Your Medical Appointments
Rideshare companies Uber and Lyft provide transportation services to airports, from restaurants, and to places throughout the state. Now, they’re trying to help people make it to their doctors’ appointments. Both companies have ventured into the non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) space with Uber Health and Lyft Concierge. For patients who are house-bound without transportation, or…
Read MoreNew Law Requires Hospitals to Publish Prices for Procedures
Thanks to a new law that went into effect on January 1, 2019, hospitals are now required to publish the prices of their procedures. The hospital’s price list must be made public, published online and updated each year, according to a story in Newsweek. The new law also applies to rehabilitation facilities, psychiatric hospitals and…
Read MoreThe VA Ignored Millions Earmarked for Veteran Suicide Prevention
Preventing veterans from committing suicide was named the “highest clinical priority” by the Veterans Administration, yet VA officials still failed to spend the $17.7 million in the suicide prevention budget for fiscal year 2018, according to a story in Time Magazine. A report published in November 2018 by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found…
Read MoreWhy the FDA’s “Transformative” Changes Will Amount to More of the Same
Imagine discovering that severe respiratory distress was a side effect of a small device implanted in the top of the spine to relieve pain. After Kathleen Yaremchuk, an ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctor had to perform an emergency tracheotomy on one patient with the implant to save her life, she and her colleagues reviewed…
Read MoreEssure Permanent Birth Control Leads to Permanent Health Problems for Women
(This is part of a series, presented by McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, LLC, titled “Life on The Bleeding Edge: How the FDA Won’t Keep You Safe.” To learn more, please read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.) In July 2018, the medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturer Bayer released a statement that they would…
Read More3000+ Patients Possibly Exposed to HIV, Hepatitis in a Surgical Center
More than 3,000 patients of an ambulatory surgical center in New Jersey received letters, warning that they may have been exposed to bloodborne pathogens if they had a procedure at the HealthPlus Surgery Center between January and September of 2018. Upon investigation, the NJ Department of Health found that staff at the facility were not…
Read MoreFormer CEO of Insys to Plead Guilty in Opioid-Kickback Scheme
In late December of 2018, federal prosecutors announced that Michael Babich, former CEO of Insys Therapeutics, agreed to plead guilty to participating in a bribery scheme which gave kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing a powerful opioid painkiller. Babich, who resigned his role as CEO of the Arizona-based drug manufacturing firm, was scheduled to…
Read MoreJanuvia and Byetta Lawsuits Are Going Back to Court
Januvia and Byetta, along with Janumet and Victoza, are the diabetes drugs at the center of 945 lawsuits. The cases had originally been dismissed, but a federal appeals court overturned that decision in December of 2017, and remanded the cases back to U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia in the Southern District of California. He has…
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