Device treating pain draws thousands of injury reports

[JacksinPA]

https://www.apnews.com/86ba45b0a4ad443fad1214622d13e6cb

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Desperate for relief after years of agony, Jim Taft listened intently as his pain management doctor described a medical device that could change his life.

It wouldn’t fix the nerve damage in his mangled right arm, Taft and his wife recalled the doctor saying, but a spinal-cord stimulator would cloak his pain, making him “good as new.”

Taft’s stimulator failed soon after it was surgically implanted. After an operation to repair it, he said, the device shocked him so many times that he couldn’t sleep and even fell down a flight of stairs. Today, the 45-year-old Taft is virtually paralyzed, a prisoner in his own bed, barely able to get to the bathroom by himself.
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The medical device industry should be probed. I heard on TV last night that there is a multi-billion $ industry in the U.S. for exporting medical devices that are not approved for use in this country.

 

[Risky Thicket]

https://www.apnews.com/86ba45b0a4ad443fad1214622d13e6cb

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Desperate for relief after years of agony, Jim Taft listened intently as his pain management doctor described a medical device that could change his life.

It wouldn’t fix the nerve damage in his mangled right arm, Taft and his wife recalled the doctor saying, but a spinal-cord stimulator would cloak his pain, making him “good as new.”

Taft’s stimulator failed soon after it was surgically implanted. After an operation to repair it, he said, the device shocked him so many times that he couldn’t sleep and even fell down a flight of stairs. Today, the 45-year-old Taft is virtually paralyzed, a prisoner in his own bed, barely able to get to the bathroom by himself.
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The medical device industry should be probed. I heard on TV last night that there is a multi-billion $ industry in the U.S. for exporting medical devices that are not approved for use in this country.

Yet medicinal marijuana proscribed for pain is dangerous. :roll:

 

[JacksinPA]

Yet medicinal marijuana proscribed for pain is dangerous. :roll:

Thank the Pilgrims who left one form of religious oppression to come here & start another: intolerance of things that are fun.

 

[HonestJoe]

Strangely there was a report today about the same subject in the UK; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46337937

Can’t help wondering if that’s more than a coincidence.

 

[JacksinPA]

Strangely there was a report today about the same subject in the UK; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46337937

Can’t help wondering if that’s more than a coincidence.

It's a big problem. A guy in Australia (apparently a body builder) had to have his shoulder replaced with one of these unapproved U.S. devices & it failed, needing replacement. I'm sure there are lots of stories like this that haven't yet made the major papes.

 

[JacksinPA]

https://www.rt.com/usa/444861-medtronic-deaths-faulty-implants/

Top-profiting US medtech firm linked to 9,000+ deaths from faulty implants – report

A major US-based medtech company’s faulty equipment could be linked to thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of injuries, and they are not the only culprits in the $400bn industry.
Medtech giant Medtronic, officially headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, but operating from the US, could be responsible for 9,300 deaths and 292,000 injuries in the US alone, according a study published on Sunday. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) report claims that one in five of the company’s medical implants have tested faulty, resulting in a massive amount of deaths and injuries while company profits soared. The ICIJ claims that “patients around the world have become unwitting test subjects for new medical technology”, as unsafe and insufficiently tested implants are rushed to market.
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Leave it to the Russians to dig up the dirt. I used to call on Medtronic, which has a major facility near Minneapolis. Tried to sell them a small volume, high value-added chemical (delta-aminolevulinic acid) that I knew they were using but they told me that if they bought it from my company they'd have to fire the employee who was currently making it in house for them. Interesting POV because I could have saved them $$$.