Recent Biomedical Ethics Case

An article in the January 15th edition of the New York Times caught our director's eye recently. It describes a recent lawsuit filed by a former medical device executive who blew the whistle on his company Guidant after the company had for years told him to market stents that had been approved to treat digestive tract cancers to treat blood vessels in other parts of the body. These devices (called biliary stents), which have only approved by the FDA for use in the digestive tract, have not been approved for these other, off-label uses. Studies have shown that injury or death can occur in patients as result of device malfunctions when the stents were used off-label.

Click here to read the fully article, "Lawsuit Challenges Marketing of Stents" by Barry Meier. New York Times. January 14, 2010