Free Republic

Can you imagine what our country would be like if Spitzer was successfull in putting all of his targets out of business? He'd catapult us into the 19th century. A Harvard Medical School study found that doctors implanted more than 2.25 million pacemakers and 400,000 defibrillators in the United States from 1990 to 2002. Malfunctions were directly responsible for just 61 deaths (half from each type of device). While every accidental death is tragic, a fatal error rate of 0.002 percent hardly appears to be the malfeasance these lawsuits suggest. ...Spitzer's solution of (supposedly) "erring on the side of caution"...

Guidant Corp. said Friday it was recalling cardiac defibrillators implanted in nearly 50,000 people worldwide because of a flaw that could cause it to malfunction. At least two patients with the devices have died. The Indianapolis-based company said it was advising physicians about the safety of several defibrillator models, which have failed at least 45 times. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised patients to see their doctor and said it would not recommend whether individual patients with one of the recalled devices should have them removed and replaced. Guidant offered to replace some of the defibrillators, but has not...