Whistleblowers to get cut of record fines in health care fraud case
Posted: July 3, 2012
Consumer Fraud
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline will pay a combined total of $3 billion in civil and criminal fines and plead guilty to pushing two of its popular drugs for unapproved purposes and withholding important safety information about a third drug from U.S. regulators.
Big Pharma earns 77,500-percent return on lobbying investments, at taxpayers’ expense
Posted: April 19, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Until November 2010, an opioid painkiller called Darvocet (Dextropropoxyphene) had been prescribed to millions of people since the 1950s, despite its known risks for overdose and heart arrhythmia. It remained on the market for decades, despite multiple attempts by safety
Injured Pfizer worker blows whistle on unpoliced biotech hazards
Posted: April 4, 2012
Personal Injury
Becky McClain was a molecular biologist working for Pfizer Inc. when she was allegedly injured on the job after being exposed to a highly secretive virus in the company’s Groton, Connecticut, laboratories. McClain filed a number of complaints with Pfizer
Pinnacle recipient’s on-camera revision surgery reveals extensive injuries
Posted: March 27, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Maureen Bayles, a resident of Richmond, England, just to the west of London, told the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Newsnight program that when she had to get her hips replaced in 2005, she was told that DePuy’s Pinnacle implants were
New study advises surgeons, patients avoid all-metal hip implants
Posted: March 26, 2012
Pharmaceutical
A new study funded by the National Joint Registry of England and Wales and published this month in the British medical journal The Lancet calls on surgeons to stop using metal-on-metal hip implants completely, saying that evidence shows patients who
Study links SSRI use to dangerous pregnancy complication
Posted: March 23, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Recent studies have shown that some types of antidepressants increase the risk for birth defects when mothers take them while pregnant. But new studies suggest that the medication may also cause problems with the pregnancy itself.
DePuy ordered phase-out of defective hip implant after FDA inquiry
Posted: March 23, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Johnson & Johnson decided to phase out one of the hip implants made by its subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics and sell off its inventory shortly after receiving an inquiry from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that questioned the device’s safety
Johnson & Johnson sold unapproved transvaginal mesh for years, report claims
Posted: March 23, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Johnson & Johnson sold its Gynecare Prolift vaginal mesh for three years without obtaining approval for the product, according to a March 21 report by Bloomberg. The Prolift mesh, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eventually approved for
Consumer reports: fast-tracked medical devices a “nightmare scenario”
Posted: March 21, 2012
Pharmaceutical
Hundreds of patients who have been implanted with a Pinnacle hip implant system made by DePuy Orthopaedics have filed complaints against the manufacturer, alleging the all-metal device is to blame for a multitude of injuries and illnesses. But unlike DePuy’s
Consumer Reports warns of FDA’s fast-track medical device approval process
Posted: March 21, 2012
Pharmaceutical
In an email blast to one million subscribers, Consumer Reports President Jim Guest wrote that medical devices that receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval through its fast-track process have created a “nightmare scenario” for public safety. The fast-track
