A defective circuit breaker in some Nissan Frontier pickup trucks may cause a fire therefore Nissan is recalling 16,838 model years 2012 through 2014 in North America. No accidents or injury have been reported so far.
Read more at Reuters.com
A defective ignition switch can turn off the engine and disable the airbag on six different models of General Motors cars but last week the company decided to only recall two models even though management is perfectly aware that 4 other models have the same defect.
Read here the investigation of Christopher Jensen from the New York Times.
Imported sub-standard quality and defective drugs were the central theme of FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg’s visit to India. The visit was organized after the FDA recently banned the import of drugs and drug ingredients from several large Indian manufacturers for quality reasons. The commissioner met with health officials, regulators and drug makers executives including those of the banned companies.
Both countries agreed that their regulators would work more closely to better coordinate regulatory oversight as well as organize seminars, webinars, meetings and training sessions.
India is the second largest drug importer in the US after Canada and supplies 40% of the generic and over the counter drugs used in the US. Recently the FDA has been concerned by the increase of defective or low quality drugs imported from India. Weak domestic regulatory oversight and a lax approach to quality control by some manufacturers are the main reasons why a significant quantity of low quality or defective drugs reach the American market undetected.
Imported high risk defective drugs are a rising concern for the FDA. The agency wants to spend more resources to fight the “bad guys” and provide incentives to drug manufacturers who are adopting best practices for supply chain integrity by giving them expedited access for the importation of up to five of their drug products. The pilot will last two years and if effective, will be open to additional companies.
Companies that have qualified for the pilot are
• AbbVie Inc.
90% of dangerous and defective children products are not being returned or repaired according to a new report by the Children Safety Advocate Group Kids in Danger. Because it takes an average 14 reports of design complaints and two reports of personal injury related to the product for the manufacturer to initiate a recall, some of the products may have been discarded or may not be used anymore by the parents at the date of the recall. However such a high percentage indicates that many dangerous products that have already injured or killed children are still being used by parents that are unaware of the recall. According to the report, in 2012, 584 incidents and 39 personal injuries were reported after a juvenile product was recalled.
These numbers demonstrate that manufacturers and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have to find a way to better communicate recalls to consumers. The report also shows that social media is a very effective way to communicate recalls but is not used enough by manufacturers.
Parents also have to be responsible and fill out the product registration card for all juveniles products so that the manufacturer can automatically reach out to them in case of a product recall or any other safety issue. Unfortunately only 30% of parents fill out the registration card for juvenile products.
Two pending product liability lawsuits including one wrongful death lawsuit, 6100 consumer complaints and a recent recall letter from the NHTSA following an Engineering Analysis of the Office of Defects Investigation have convinced Graco Children’s Product to conduct a recall of the seat harness buckles on most of its children car seats models manufactured since 2009. The defective harness buckles are becoming more difficult to open over time or become stuck in the latched position especially if it gets clogged up with food or dirt. Stuck or sticking buckles may prevent or impede the removal of the child from the car seat in a case of an emergency. According to the NHTSA Graco has been named defendant in two product liability lawsuit related to defective harness buckles. The first one is a consumer class action complaint alleging that the buckles is unreasonably difficult to unlatch or simply doesn’t unlatch. The second lawsuit is related to the death of a young child who died in car fire. Plaintiff alleged that parts in Graco car seat design made it extremely difficult to remove a child that was secured in the seat during an emergency. The recalls 3.7 millions units. Parents who own a defective car seat model and have previously registered it with Graco will automatically receive a Consumer Notification Letter with instructions on how to order a buckle repair kit. Parents who didn’t register their products can order the blucke repair kit online.
Click here for complete list of defective models and contact details.
Drug manufacturers are liable for the safety of their products. Mostly for profit reason some trial results may be overlooked and drugs may be launched on the market with dangerous side effects. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that patients with diabetes using the drug saxagliptin had an increased risk to be hospitalized for heart failure.
For this reason The FDA just published a safety announcement that it requested clinical trial data from the manufacturer of saxagliptin to investigate a possible association between use of the type 2 diabetes drug and heart failure.
Read the Safety Announcement from the FDA
Defective heaters can cause serious personal injury to consumers and should not be used. If you are using a portable heater please make sure that it has been tested under the latest safety standards and that it is not the subject of a recall. Recently Walmart and Sears recalled the the Kenmore Oscillating Fan Heater because it was posing a risk of fire and burns to consumers. A broken motor mount can cause the units to overheat, catch fire and ignite nearby items.
Read more on the CPSC website
A 16 month-old child wrongfully died and a 15 month-old child was severely injured after they became entangled in a very popular Ikea’s children’s wall-mounted lamp.
There were 2.9 million lamps sold in the US, 1.1 million in Canada and 23 million worldwide.
Consumers should stop using the defective lamp and contact Ikea at 888 966 4532 for a free repair kit. The repair kit has self-adhesive fasteners for attaching the lamp’s cord to the wall as well as safety instructions.
To prevent wrongful death and personal injury caused by defective or unsafe bedside sleepers a new federal mandatory standard to improve the safety of bedside sleepers was just approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
A bedside sleeper is a bassinet that is attached to an adult bed for parents to easily access their infant from their bed. It is intended for babies up to approximately 5 months.
Among the changes, the new standard includes modifications to the existing standard to address fabric-sided enclosed opening entrapment hazards. Between 2007 and 2009, the CPSC received 4 reports of infant wrongful deaths associated with fabric-sided openings on the products.
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog