Defective Products Archive

Medtronic Under Fire with Questions of Financial Conflict

July 7th, 2011. By Hunter West

A blockbuster investigation by some print media outlets has spurred a US Senate Finance committee to start beating the bushes once again around the medical devices industry.

There are many questions:

How safe are the products that wind up in your body?

What do the manufacturers know about potential safety issues, but aren’t telling?

Why is it okay for a doctor or surgeon to be paid by a medical device manufacturer? And can you really trust what a doctor [who is paid by the device maker] says about that device?

Do you feel like a guinea pig?

It was revealed yesterday through a series of articles published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today that there is some controversy surrounding Medtronic Infuse, a popular bioagent known as bone morphogenetic protein-2, designed to foster bone growth required for spinal fusions.

Infuse was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2002 and doctors love it. It’s easy to work with. And you don’t have to harvest a patient’s own bone from elsewhere, in order to accomplish the surgery. You have to love something that allows a surgery to proceed faster, and more easily.

But here’s the rub—and the reason for the Senate Committee investigation. It seems that a cadre of surgeons around the country were paid by the device manufacturer, Medtronic. Those same surgeons with financial ties to Medtronic were involved both in the clinical trials for Infuse, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Infuse, Medtronic
Posted in Defective Products, Drugs/Medical | 2 Comments »

Coolest Gadget to Protect Kids from Cell Phone Radiation

June 29th, 2011. By AbiK

You cannot beat this one for its coolness. It’s retro, it’s comfortable to hold, it’s available in a rainbow of colors, and it’s relatively cheap ($29.99 at Amazon.com). And hell, Lenny Kravitz has been spotted using one on the street. In black, in case you’re wondering.

Ahh, but there’s more. The POP Phone—officially, the Native Union Moshi Moshi Pop Phone—has another benefit: it makes it possible to pull a cell phone away from your ear (and that cerebral mass that’s housed just behind the ear) thereby also pulling away that fearsome cell phone radiation that everyone’s been talking about. After all, that’s the greatest beef about cell phone radiation—that the need to hold a cell phone directly against your head doesn’t leave mush travel time or distance for those radiation waves to traverse they skip over to your brain.

Not that there haven’t been alternatives to the POP Phone—and the POP Phone’s been around for awhile, too. But tech gadgets like a Bluetooth earpiece must seem so”oh dad uses that in the car for work” and, therefore, the height of it’s-just-not-cool. Of course, an earpiece or earbuds do allow for that hands-free experience—but in my experience with kids, hands-free means their hands are somewhere else…

Like a steering wheel, and I’d rather my kids have their hands on some bigger, bulkier contraption that might force them to shut-up and drive vs. thinking they’re the kings of multi-tasking behind the wheel. Kids + distraction typically yields not much good—and until we have more stringent laws banning the use of cell phones, smart phones, and any other mobile device that encourages distracted driving, I’m all for phone calls that are more of a pain in the a$$ to make in the car.

Detractors of the POP phone tend to site the “where do you put it?” conundrum—as in, when you’ve ended the phone call. Used to be you’d “hang up the phone”, only there’s no place to hang. I have no doubt that between kids’ ingenuity and a few hot designers from Target, that problem won’t be a problem for long.

Tags: Amazon.com, Cell Phone Radiation, Hands-free Phone, Lenny Kravitz, Native Union Moshi Moshi, POP Phone
Posted in Defective Products | No Comments »

Court of Public Opinion: Dunkin Donuts Coffee Lawsuit is B.S.

June 6th, 2011. By AbiK

Have you ever gotten food at a QSR and not gotten exactly what you ordered? QSR, for those who don’t give much thought to restaurant classifications, stands for “Quick Serve Restaurant” and includes such fine establishments as McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Starbucks and…Dunkin Donuts, which we’ll get to in a minute.

My guess is that you have. It’s the type of industry that makes process improvement experts giddy with glee—so much opportunity to play hero. After all, the ‘defects per million opportunities’ (DPMO) are seemingly countless.

The reason I bring this up is that, given that tidbit of knowledge or supposition, you go into a QSR—or drive thru one—expecting a less than 100% delivery on your expectations. Not that you can’t be satisfied with what you’ve ordered—it just may not be exactly what you ordered. Lettuce is limp. Ketchup’s missing. You said “French” dressing and got “Ranch”. So it’s like the saying goes, “forewarned is forearmed”.

You do things like checking your takeout bag before leaving the place. Count the number of straws. Repeat the order back to the order taker. Say that it’s the orange-colored dressing, not the white one. You’re on guard. And that’s for you or me—the average Joe without any medical condition that might otherwise have us on super high alert when ordering fast food.

Now, back to Dunkin Donuts. So Danielle Jordan—who by now everyone knows is 47 and lives Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Coffee lawsuit, Crescentville, Danielle Jordan, Diabetes, Diabetic Shock, Dunkin Donuts, Dunkin Donuts lawsuit, Sweet Coffee
Posted in Defective Products, Food Illness, lawsuits | 1 Comment »

Want a Flat Stomach? Check out my Ab Circle Pro Review…

May 19th, 2011. By AbiK

I’m gearing up—with mere weeks to go—for baring what I can this summer in a bathing suit. After 3 kids and a grand exodus out of my 20’s (alright, 30’s too), hopes for a bikini bod may be right up there with my hope to have been creator of LinkedIn (#IPO!!). Delusional I may be, but hope rings eternal and—dammit—I’m going to get into a 2-piece this summer. Won’t be a D&G string bikini—my fantasies don’t extend to role-playing Eve donning a leaf or two for coverage and my wallet, well, just doesn’t extend period—but lose the Speedo I shall. So I’m shopping for fitness equipment, and I happen upon the Ab Circle Pro. Come check it out with me…

First stop, the Ab Circle Pro website. First question? Who the hell is Audrina Patridge? Ditto Jennifer Nicole Lee. And as for Amanda Beard, well, her “before” photo has her looking a bit pregnant and my guess on how she lost that 45 lbs is it was more a result of delivering her baby vs. the Ab Circle Pro. A bit dubious. But no, I am not jaded.

So the Ab Circle Pro website is beckoning me to “take the ride of your life”. The “ride” is a get-on-all-fours on what’s basically one of those disc sled saucers—knees resting on moveable pads that can rotate around the rim of the saucer. I wanted a better view, so I hopped over to Consumer Reports Ab Circle Pro video (above)—always good for some unbiased input. And what do you know? They pretty much slam the contraption as not worth it. Hmm.

Next, my interest piqued, I decided to search for Ab Circle Pro reviews—which landed me at the mother of all marketplaces, Amazon. Here’s a little depiction of what I found there (as of 5/19/11):

Seems the Ab Circle Pro only got a 1-star rating by close to 50% of those who bought and tried it. And there are two interesting trends in all those reviewers comments:

1. The Ab Circle Pro is described with words like “falls apart”, “cheap construction”, “paint peeling”, “wheels come off”, “quality sucks”. Described consistently I might add. Hmm.

2. The Ab Circle Pro seems as connected to the words “injury” and “damage” as downing a daily Klondike bar is connected to keeping the pounds on. No kidding—here are some comments:

Ab Circle Pro Knee Injury: “This is an excellent piece of crap. From the time it comes to your home it keeps on injuring you…when you are using it screws your knees“

Ab Circle Pro Knee Injury: “All buyers need to be careful of this machine. It is unsafe. Depending on the level of your workouts, you can throw yourself out of the knee holders. I did this and ended up having surgery on my shoulder for a torn rotator cuff! I found out, when I called and explained the situation to the customer service rep, that I could have gel knee pads to put in the cups for an extra fee! I told them that I was injured by this machine due to not having the gel inserts and required surgery! I got them for free, and I can see why, the gel inserts are garbage! I do not use this machine anymore. It scares me! The surgery I had was the worst in pain and now my ROM is restricted. If you buy this, please be cautious as to how you use it and if you are smart, you will avoid it all together.”

Not to mention several stories from people who resorted to either Vaseline® or Pam cooking spray to lubricate the Ab Circle Pro’s parts.

I Googled Ab Circle Pro a bit more—only to find my search revealed new keyword associations like “Ab Circle Pro Back Pain Damage to Lower Spine” as the headline of a user’s comment over at Complaints Board. Which also led me to two individuals who found themselves with fractured Humerus bones, apparently compliments of that “ride” of their lives on Ab Circle Pro.

Crowning touch? The handful of folks who’ve gone as far as to suggest an Ab Circle Pro lawsuit or an Ab Circle Pro class action. Hey, wait a minute! That just might make for a story over at LawyersandSettlements.com (wink-wink)…

This is not boding well for my get-a-bikini-bod plan. Or maybe it is—keep the Speedo, get in shape the tried and true old-fashioned way with some exercise and a few less Lindt truffles—and skip risking an Ab Circle Pro injury and the aggravation of a piece of junk that falls apart. Maybe for some folks the Ab Circle Pro is the way to go, but for my pre-buy review, I think it’ll be buyer beware…

Tags: Ab Circle Pro, Ab exerciser, Amanda Beard, Amazon, Audrina Patridge, Bikini Body, Consumer Reports, Diet, Flat Stomach, Flat Tummy, Get in Shape, Jennifer Nicole Lee, Lose Weight
Posted in Complaints/Comments, Defective Products, Emerging Issues | 1 Comment »

Food Safety Alert: The Problem With Meat Glue

April 21st, 2011. By Hunter West

Oh, you haven’t heard of meat glue? The food industry loves the stuff—and for good reason. Anything that would allow the morphing of a bucket of meat bits, like stewing beef for example, into what looks like a Grade A steak and commands a Grade A price at the counter, is akin to manna from heaven. 

To the untrained eye (meaning, you and me), it’s impossible to tell the difference. It looks like a steak. It grills like a steak. It tastes like a steak. But it’s not a steak, but rather chunks of meat that in a previous era would have been sold as stewing beef for a lot less than the kind of price a steak commands. But mix in some meat glue, roll it up and after six hours in the refrigerator, out comes a gelled roll that can be sliced into a series of lovely-looking, boneless steaks. 

The potential for fraud is obvious. Beyond the deception, however, why did the European Union ban meat glue last year? 

First, the back-story of what meat glue is. In fact, meat glue is actually an enzyme derived from thrombin and fibrogen, which is obtained from the blood plasma of swine and cattle. This is the stuff that causes blood to clot—and it also does a spiffy job, it turns out, of knitting small bits of meat together to appear like more expensive-looking steaks. 

Is meat glue harmful? Well, the European Food Safety Authority gave meat glue a positive safety opinion in 2005, only to ban it five years later. And a butcher participating in a story Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: EU, fibrogen, Food Poisoning, meat additive, meat glue, thrombin
Posted in Defective Products, Drugs/Medical, Food Illness | 2 Comments »