Last year, just as it was putting itself up for sale to J&J, device maker Guidant was the feature of a series of articles in The New York Times in which it was accused of poorly communicating about problems with its pacemakers to physicians. Eventually, several pacemakers were recalled. Note that replacing a pacemaker means expensive and painful surgery, so this was not a trivial decision.
Now the Times features some of the discoveries from one of a number of lawsuits concerning the recall, revealing that the company knowingly sold devices that were faulty and kept doctors (not to mention patients and regulators) in the dark about what the company knew and when it knew it. Guidant was eventually sold to Boston Scientific, which has inherited the aftermath of those problems, and--given its history of stent recalls-- knows something about production problems.
- read the article [1] in The New York Times
Links:
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/business/28device.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th