Physio-Control, a subsidiary of medical device manufacturer Medtronic, Inc., has begun a field correction effort to fix a possible battery power problem in its defibrillators.  The medical devices are the subject of a “Class 1″ recall by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the highest-level recall made by the agency. According to the FDA, [...]

New Orleans’ worst fear in the Gulf oil spill was confirmed when officials reported late Tuesday that oil is now in New Orleans’ Lake Pontchartrain. The lake was only recently rescued from massive pollution, and according to the Lake Pontcharain Basin Foundation, even people involved in the restoration doubted the lake could be cleaned up.  [...]

Texas officials have been watching carefully since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon for any impact on Texas shores, and now tar balls from the Gulf oil disaster have washed up on Texas shores. Two crews were cleaning up tar balls found on the Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island earlier this week and [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Pfizer Inc., allowing Nigerian families to proceed with their lawsuit against the pharmaceutical giant for testing an experimental antibiotic on their children. Pfizer conducted clinical trials of the drug Trovan in Nigeria 1996, during a meningitis epidemic.  The lawsuit alleges that the drug caused [...]

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced the recall of yet another line of children’s jewelry containing high levels of the toxic metal cadmium. Children’s Happy Charm Bracelets and Football Rings are the subject of this latest recall. Approximately 66,200 Charm Bracelets and 2,200 Football Rings were distributed at doctors’ and dentists’ offices [...]

Sony is providing free laptop updates to Vaio laptop owners to cure the risk of overheating.  The company has received 39 reports—36 of them in the U.S.—about overheating and distortion of the computers’ shape.  Over 500,000 Vaio laptops could have the overheating problem. Sony previously recalled 9.6 million laptop batteries in 2006 because of quality [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently admonished drug company Shire Plc for language in its promotional materials for the drug Intuniv, which is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and teens.  The FDA approved the drug last September. According to the agency’s June 22 letter to the company, brochures in a [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a draft of guidelines for the “judicious” use of antibiotics in livestock.  The draft describes a series of scientific articles concluding that using antimicrobial drugs for production and growth-enhancing purposes rather than for therapeutic purposes in food-producing animals is resulting in antimicrobial resistance to the drugs.  [...]

U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has announced that he plans to introduce legislation to study the effects of cell phone use.  The bill would create a national research program to study possible problems.  It would also require phone labels on cell phones indicating the radiation level of the device.  He noted that while the results [...]

Weather forecasters and officials said that Hurricane Alex, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, could affect oil cleanup efforts for days, even though it was 600 miles away from the massive spill. Turbulent Gulf waters caused by Alex have already disrupted containment booms aimed at limiting the amount of oil reaching shore, Rear Adm. [...]