Our Blog - Month: February 2013

The number of fatal MUNI accidents has remained consistent for two years, according to a recent report by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). Fatal bus and rail accidents peaked in 2007-2008, but have remained relatively unchanged since then. San Francisco’s Municipal Railway is part of the nation’s seventh-largest transit system. MUNI connects commuters…

San Francisco’s streets were slightly more dangerous last year, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) says. The city saw 3,111 nonfatal injury traffic accidents in 2011, 30 more than the prior year. The number of fatal traffic collisions also increased from 23 in 2010 to 28 in 2011. A variety of factors can contribute…

Medtronic recently sent an urgent letter to physicians warning that two of its SynchroMed drug infusion pumps have product defects that may cause the pumps to stop working. As of last summer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had received more than 550 complaints regarding SynchroMed pump failures. The FDA has decided to classify…

Drugmaker Amgen recently agreed to a $762 million settlement of criminal penalties and whistleblower lawsuits related to its illegal marketing of Aranesp, an anemia drug. Federal prosecutors say that the drugmaker marketed its pharmaceuticals for uses that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explicitly ruled out. “Promoting drugs for unapproved purposes is beyond wrong;…

When most people think about medical malpractice, they think of surgical errors or patient neglect. A recent article in USA Today reports that a more fundamental error occurs in up to 5 percent of American hospitals and clinics: the use of dirty syringes. Experts say that approximately 150,000 patients are treated with dirty syringes annually….

The cost of pharmaceuticals is a growing problem in the United States and many doctors and patients seek to cut costs by buying online. One internet pharmaceutical company called CanadaDrugs has grown exponentially in the past few years by allowing American physicians and consumers to buy drugs from price-controlled countries such as the U.K. and…