DePuy hip implant bellwether trials set in Ohio, Texas
A U.S. District Court judge in Ohio has scheduled the first bellwether trial for lawsuits filed against DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., alleging defects in the metal-on-metal ASR hip replacement system. A bellwether trial is used for multiple lawsuits with common complaints. The Ohio trial is set for May 2013. Attorneys were ordered to submit four trial candidates to the judge. Since …
Transvaginal mesh maker Bard to pay $5.5 million in civil verdict
A California woman was awarded $5 million and her husband $500,000 after a jury found that transvaginal mesh manufacturer C.R. Bard Inc.’s negligence caused the woman’s injuries including incontinence and chronic pain. The jury ruled on July 23, 2012, that Bard was 60 percent responsible and the surgeon 40 percent responsible for negligent handling of Bard’s Avaulta Plus vaginal mesh …
Drug risks to older adults ignored in clinical trials, Public Citizen says
Older adults use more medicines than younger people and also tend to experience more serious side effects, including death. Yet drug makers often exclude older adults from clinical trials, according to the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. In particular, a new analysis of four popular medications often taken by older adults – rosuvastatin (Crestor) for high cholesterol, valsartan (Diovan) for …
Drug, medical device trials that doctors rely on flawed, analysis shows
A new analysis concluded that many of the reports that are conducted on new drugs and medical devices come from studies conducted on a small number of patients in clinical trials with less-than-reliable methods and, often, missing data! Dr. Robert Califf of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute in Durham, N.C., told Reuters Health that these medical studies are what many …
