WALL STREET has basically blown off reports of a defect in a defibrillator made by Guidant. The company’s stock has fallen only slightly since Tuesday, when the New York Times ran a front page story detailing problems with the Ventak Prizm 2 Model 1861. The story was prompted by the death of Joshua Oukrop, a 21-year old from Minnesota. So far the death is the only one linked to the defibrillator. Twenty-five other incidents of non-lethal malfunctions have been reported.
Did the Times go a little too far in giving the story such prominent play under the circumstances? Were editors at the paper possibly just a little bit overeager in their zeal to nail a major device manufacturer and embarrass the FDA? A lot of doctors and other healthcare people I know are still angry about the way the Times and other media outlets handled the drug safety story. I’m not sure that I know the answer to this one, but its certainly a question worth thinking about.
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Of some interest to your readers might be one Guidant consultant’s efforts to enlist one commentator’s support in attacking the New York Times. See http://urielw.com/guidant.htm
I don’t understand, or better, I do not want to do it. There are so many medical resources nowadays, very competitive and convenient medical alarms systems that could prevent this kind of errors. Ant it’s all there, on the Internet in plain view. They only have to bother to look for the information where to acquire such device. I suggest one place that will inform them what to do it’s called http://www.aboutmedicalalarm.com and from there they could learn how to find a support on one of these medical devices.
I certainly think that this story is much less significant than the Runaway Bride. Or Michael Jackson. Or Scott Petersen. Or American Idol. Or this gem leading the news in Connecticut:
http://www.nbc30.com/news/4526826/detail.html
Of course in the grand scheme of things, a death or two from a faulty defibrilator is nothing compared to the number of deaths each day from preventable medical errors.