Infuse lawsuits pile up for Medtronic | Legal News (MassDevice)
A Florida woman is the latest in what's sure to be a long line of plaintiffs filing personal injury lawsuits against Medtronic Inc. over its controversial Infuse bone morphogenetic protein.
Personal injury lawsuits over its controversial Infuse bone-growth protein are beginning to pile up for Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT), after theSpine Journal revealed serious concerns about the device's safety this summer.
In June, the journal took the unprecedented step of devoting an entire issue to the Infuse controversy. Its investigation found problems with 13 studies by MDT-sponsored physicians, all of which downplayed or omitted the rates of adverse events associated with the protein, known as recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2.
Although the furor ignited by the study eventually died down on Wall Street (where analysts warned of a possible 3-cent-per-share dip in overall profits), Medtronic and Infuse are under intense scrutiny elsewhere. The U.S. Justice Dept. and the U.S. Senate are each conducting probes into the bone morphogenetic compound and its Fridley, Minn.-based maker's marketing practices.
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