Justice Delayed - Two Device Companies Still Settling Cases from 10 Plus Years Ago

Here we go again.  After a hiatus during which the US media and perhaps parts of the government were preoccupied with such issues as the ongoing controversy over health care reform, and a government shutdown apparently arising out of this controversy, the march of legal settlements involving big health care organizations has resumed. In alphabetical order,...Boston ScientificFrom the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on 17 October, 2013, an account of a settlement arising from alleged misbehavior that started in 2002,A $30 million settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Boston Scientific will likely end a case involving the sale of defective heart devices from 2002 through 2005 by subsidiaries Guidant, Guidant Sales and Cardiac Pacemakers.Note that the allegations were particularly egregious since they involved a company selling products they knew to be defective in ways that could prove fatal as if they were quite safe, The settlement closes a fraudulent-claims lawsuit that alleged Guidant knowingly sold defective implantable defibrillators to health care facilities that implanted them into thousands of Medicare patients. In particular,The government’s complaint said that Guidant knew as early as April 2002 that its Prizm 2 line of devices was defective and knew in November 2003 that its Renewal 1 and 2 devices were capable of short-circuiting and delivering an electric shock that 'arcs' back onto the device instead of being directed to an irre...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: BMP-2 Boston Scientific Guidant ICD impunity legal settlements medical devices Stryker Source Type: blogs