A former Medtronic engineer has drawn the attention of the FDA after he made allegations that Medtronic failed to properly test its new Concerto cardiac device for patients with congestive heart failure. The engineer, Christopher Fuller, worked at Medtronic until late 2005. Fuller has said that Medtronic didn’t properly or adequately test Concerto’s wireless capability which could result in safety issues for the cardiac patients.

A Pennsylvania state jury found Wyeth’s hormone replacement drug Prempro the culprit in a woman’s breast cancer. Wyeth was ordered to pay $1.5million in compensatory damages. Punitive damages had not been determined.
Wyeth faces about 5,000 product liability lawsuits involving Prempro which was first put on the market in 1995. Prempro remains on the market to this day.

Bishop Gumbleton, retired Auxiliary Bishop of Detroit and recently ousted pastor of St. Leo parish in Detoit, told his parishioners this past Sunday why he thinks he was removed from the parish. “I’m sure,” he said, “that it’s because of the openness with which I spoke out last January concerning victims of sex abuse in the church.” Gumbleton is not new to controversy or problems with the church hierarchy. He has advocated on behalf of the poor, peace advocates, and social justice.

Genentech Inc. has issued a warning to eye specialists that its drug Lucentis has been found to increase the risk of strokes in patients taking the drug for age-relate blindness. Lucentis, manufactured by Genentech, has been prescribed for age-related macular degeneraton, a condition affecting approximately 1.4 million Americans. Lucentis had been marketed as specifically for eye treatment and safer than its parent compound Avastin.

Permax and Dostinex, two drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease have been linked to serious heart valve damage. Pergolide, sold as Permax, has carried a black box warning from the FDA since 2006. The warning includes the following: ”Some patients have required valve replacement, and deaths have been reported.”
A milder warning was issued for Dostinex just last month.

Several states including Vermont are investigating claims that Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the anti-psychotic drug, Zyprexa, marketed the drug for uses not approved by the government. Eli Lilly has settled numerous product liability lawsuits concerning Zyprexa. Zyprexa has been on the market since 1996 and the recent controversy surrounds allegations that Eli Lilly knew that a link existed between diabetes and Zyprexa and the company suppressed the information.

Aranesp, the anemia drug used to treat certain cancer patients, carries with it a serious risk of death. Johnson & Johnson manufactures a similar drug Procrit. The latest trial was an attempt by Amgen to expand the use of Aranesp to a new group of patients: those with anemia presumably caused by their cancer. Aranesp is now approved to treat anemia caused by cancer chemotherapy but not by the cancer itself.
The 1,000 patients in the trial had active cancer, meaning they were not in remission, but were not getting chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The goal of the trial was to see if Aranesp could reduce the need for blood transfusions, which anemic people frequently require.
The company found that the drug did not reduce the need for transfusions compared with a placebo, but did increase the number of deaths by the end of 16 weeks by a statistically significant amount.

In an article published in Best Syndication, the author states that Eli Lilly’s problems with Zyprexa, the anti-psychotic drug, are not the company’s first. In the past, it has had similar issues with Evista and Prozac. Eli Lilly not only concealed Zyprexa’s dangerous side effects but promoted it for unapproved use.

The manufacturer of the antipsychotic Zyprexa, Eli Lilly knew about the dangers of the drug since 1998. Zyprexa, or olanzapine, treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, or manic depression. It is the worlds fifth-bestselling drug and has been linked to an increase in diabetes.

A study published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, there is a connection between hip fractures and certain heartburn drugs such as Prilosec, Nexium, and Prevacid. All three medications are proton pump inhibitors. The largest risk was found in those taking large doses of the drug for more than a year.