In its most recent recall, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with Hewlett Packard, today announced a voluntary recall of its HP Fax 1010 and 1010xi machines because an internal electrical component failure can cause overheating of the product, which poses a risk of burn or fire.

About 367,000 units—and an additional 84,000 units sold outside of the U.S.—which were imported by Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, California, have been recalled.  To date, Hewlett-Packard has received three reports of overheating including two in the U.S. resulting in minor property damage. No injuries have yet been reported. (more…)

The maker of CellCept, Swiss Drug Maker Roche, has informed healthcare providers that it has modified the “Warnings” and “Adverse Reactions” sections of the CellCept prescribing information to include information on its association with several cases of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML).

CellCept—generically known as mycophenolate mofetil—is part of a class of drugs called immunosuppressants and was approved in 1995 to prevent rejection of solid organ transplants, including kidney, heart, and liver. When CellCept is used  with cyclosporine and corticosteroids, it greatly reduces the patient’s immune system from attacking the transplanted organ. As with all immunosuppressants, CellCept carries certain risks, including development of lymphoma and other malignancies and is also linked to an increased risk of developing opportunistic infections and sepsis. (more…)

A little over 59,000 people have registered for the Vioxx settlement, and plaintiffs who submitted paperwork early could start seeing initial payments soon.  Meanwhile, two big Vioxx settlement deadlines are on the calendar for next week.

Vioxx was approved for use in 1999, and quickly became a blockbuster for Merck, with annual sales of $2.5 billion. The Food & Drug Administration ordered the painkiller off the market after an analysis of patients using Vioxx linked the defective drug to more than 27,000 heart attacks or sudden cardiac deaths in the U.S. from 1999 through 2003. (more…)

Recently, the parents of nine-year-old Hannah Poling won a government settlement out of a federal fund that compensates those injured by vaccines.  In this case, US officials acknowledged that the immunizations worsened an underlying disorder that led to Hannah’s autism-like symptoms.  The Polings said five simultaneous vaccinations administered in July 2000 led to Hannah’s autistic behavior.  Hannah was about 18 months at the time.  Government officials won’t say why they conceded this case, but did say those with pre-existing injuries can obtain compensation under the program if they establish that their underlying condition was “significantly aggravated” by a vaccine.

Hannah has a disorder involving her mitochondria—the energy makers of cells—which can be present at birth from an inherited gene or acquired later in life and impairs cells’ ability to use nutrients, often affecting brain functioning that can lead to delays in walking and talking.  According to Hannah’s father, either she was born with the disorder and the vaccines caused a stress that worsened the condition or thimerosal caused the mitochondrial dysfunction.  Since 2002, the preservative thimerosal has been removed from shots recommended for young children, except for some flu shots. (more…)

Federal regulators are mulling over new rules for approving diabetes drugs.  The new regulations the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is considering include requiring that new diabetes drugs have a positive impact on cardiovascular disease and life span.   The push for new rules comes a little over a year after a study found that Avandia – a popular diabetes drug marketed by GlaxoSmithKline – raised cardiovascular risks and probably did little to improve the life span of the people taking it.

Avandia has been a subject of controversy since May 2007, when an analysis of 42 clinical trails published by the Cleveland Clinic showed that patients taking the drug had a 43-percent higher risk of having a heart attack. In June 2007, Congress held hearings to discuss the FDA’s handling of its safety issues. At those hearings, it was revealed that in 2005 GlaxoSmithKline had informed the FDA of a study it had conducted that produced similar results. However, both the agency and the manufacturer felt that more investigation was needed before conclusions could be made about Avandia’s possible safety issues.  Thus, the public was not made aware of the Avandia heart attack risk until the publication of the Cleveland Clinic article. (more…)

In 2002, engineers from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) privately warned nail gun makers that the nail gun industry’s efforts to reduce the rising number of injuries with its tools wouldn’t really work; this, according to recently disclosed federal documents.

For some reason, the CPSC engineers’ views, warnings, and requests for additional study of nail guns safety features, were not addressed or disclosed publicly to US consumers.  Meanwhile, thousands of workers and home consumers continued to buy or rent nail guns at giant hardware stores nationwide during the country’s most recent housing boom.  Because of this, those sent to hospitals—both workers and home consumers—with hand, foot, knee, and head injuries that were caused by air-powered nail guns climbed to 42,000 in 2005, up significantly from 12,982 in 2000, according to federal hospital injury data. (more…)

At least one person plans on filing a lawsuit after falling ill from eating tainted meat. Zachery Everhart become sick with E. coli in the recent and ongoing multi-state outbreak of E. coli poisoning after consuming tainted meat that generated from Kroger’s Grocery. A raw beef sample sold at Gahanna’s Kroger Marketplace tested positive this week for E. coli O157:H7. Everhart’s attorney plans to file a product liability claim against Kroger and its beef supplier. Everhart said that he wants his medical bills paid for and is looking to send a message to those who sell, prepare, and process ground beef to pay closer attention to how they clean the food they sell. “It was very painful, actually severe abdominal pains for probably a duration of four days,” Everhart said.

Meanwhile, it was only after health department announcements that a two-state E. coli outbreak was linked to its tainted beef did Kroger’s Grocery finally issue a recall, despite that all evidence for days prior was pointing to its meat as having poisoned dozens. All those stricken have been infected with the same strain of E. coli as that found in the contaminated Kroger meat and include at least 14 hospitalizations, with one patient developing hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a type of kidney failure. (more…)

Tomatoes might not actually be the culprit in a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella that has sickened more than 800 people.  What’s worse, whatever is making people sick could still be sitting on grocery store shelves – putting even more consumers at risk.

For the past several weeks, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has warned consumers to stay away from raw red plum, red Roma, or round red tomatoes or any products containing them unless they are known to have come from a geographic area cleared of any connection to the outbreak.  But on Friday, David Acheson, associate commissioner with the FDA said that of 1700 domestic and international tomato samples collected for investigators so far, none has tested positive for Salmonella St. Paul – the strain of bacteria tied to the outbreak. (more…)

Scientists have still not been able to say whether or not cell phone use increases the chances of developing cancer or health problems. The uncertainty over the health effects of cell phone use has created a great deal of controversy, and has left both consumers and medical professionals confused over the possible hazards of these now ubiquitous devices.

Earlier this year, an Australian neurosurgeon published a paper on the Internet saying cell phone use “has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking.” The doctor, Vini Khurana, analyzed data from more than 100 studies, and concluded that most weren’t long enough to uncover a risk of brain cancer and that children haven’t been adequately studied (more…)

Melamine has been found in dozens of products exported globally from China and now, it seems, experts are worried that seafood raised on Chinese fish farms might also be tainted with the industrial chemical, said MarketWatchNews, citing a Los Angeles Times report.  Among other foods that have made headlines in recent months a variety of milk teas and coffees, cocoas, yogurts, candies, cookies, biscuits, cheeses, eggs, and crackers, have all been found to be tainted with melamine, prompting international recalls.    Now, scientists and consumer advocates are worried that China-raised seafood has joined the ever-expanding list of dangerous foods produced in that country.

Melamine is an industrial chemical used in the manufacture of fertilizer, fire retardants, and plastics and has been at the center of a global scandal originating in China over the adulteration of a growing array of food products with a variety of dangerous contaminants.  In particular, melamine has been used in that country to falsify protein levels.  

Because melamine contains such high nitrogen contents, it can be used to make certain foods—for instance intentionally diluted milk products—appear high in protein in certain tests, enabling producers and manufacturers to pass off sub-standard products as protein-rich.  In sufficient quantities, ingesting melamine can cause kidney problems, including kidney stones and kidney failure, and in the case of at least six children, death.  Earlier this year, tens of thousands of Chinese babies were reported sickened, hospitalized, or dead as a result of melamine-tainted forumula.  Now, reports issued by the Chinese government confirm that the original figures stating that 50,000 children were sickened by melamine-contaminated formula has been updated to state that the figure was actually closer to 300,000 instances of children and babies becoming sick with melamine-related illnesses, such as urinary and kidney ailments, reports SuperMarketNews.

Now, reports are revealing that melamine is “routinely” added to fish feed in the Chinese aquaculture industry for the same reasons as it was added to dairy products, to falsify protein levels, according to the SuperMarketNews report.  As with other contaminants affecting seafood, melamine remains in the fish who have ingested the melamine-tainted feed,   MarketWatchNews said that according to the LA Times report, recent studies conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s

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(FDA) Animal Drugs Research Center found disturbing levels of melamine in certain fish.  The report states that the FDA’s Animal Drugs Research Center found that trout, tilapia, and catfish which were raised on melamine-tainted feed contained concentrations of the toxic chemical of up to a whopping 200 parts per million (ppm), which is over 80 times the maximum “tolerable” level the FDA has set for safe human consumption, said MarketWatch.

MarketWatch also noted that while some United States fish importers do conduct voluntary melamine tests, there is no FDA requirement in place for such testing.  Meanwhile, the FDA, in its own laboratory findings regarding a similar finding of melamine in catfish last year, said:  “Because animals may eat food contaminated with melamine residues, there is a need for analytical methods to determine melamine residues that may be present in animal tissues.”  Melamine is not approved by the U.S. FDA for use in food or animal feed.