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Medtronic had more alerts for their devices
Posted On 28 Nov 2018
Ecuadornews:
The medical devices manufactured by the Medtronic giant triggered the most security alerts, according to a publication by the International Consortium o fInvestigative Journalists (ICIJ).
With the collaboration of 252 journalists from 36 countries, including the newspaper EL UNIVERSO, the Consortium formed a database with alerts issued by the organizations that regulate the commercialization of medical devices from eleven countries.
According to that information, in 2017, one of every five medical incidents reported was linked to a Medtronic device, more than twice that of any other competitor.
The devices of Medtronic, which has its fiscal domicile in Ireland, caused 191,185alerts in 2017, of which 1,828 were related to patient deaths.
Abroader analysis of ICIJ revealed that between 2008 and 2017, only in the United States, the products manufactured by Medtronic and its subsidiaries are related to the deaths of 9,300 people and caused more or less serious injuries to another 292,000.
Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak declined to speak with ICIJ journalists. In a written statement, the spokesman of the multinational, Rob Clark, said that the priority of Medtronic is the safety of patients. He added that the company is due to the”highest ethical standards in its business”.
According to the ICIJ, in the last ten years, Medtronic has had to face the disbur sementof 6.7 billion dollars to resolve the claims and court complaints of 20,000patients. In that same period, the multinational accumulated a net income of about $ 34,000 million. Its market value grew to $ 124,000 million in 2017,when ten years before it was $ 35,000 million.
Although Medtronic tops the list of alerts registered in 2017, it is not the brand with the largest number of defective devices involved in patient deaths. In this type of alerts is surpassed by Abbott Laboratories, which in that year recorded a total of 69,077 alerts, of which 2,816 were related to deaths, ie almost at housand cases more than Medtronic.
Johnson& Johnson and Boston Scientific are also among the brands with the mostre gistered alerts. These firms, together with Abbott, defended before the ICIJ that they manage their business in accordance with the highest ethical standards, which comply with the law. (I)
