Earlier this year the FDA released an alert about gadolinium-based contrast agents, announcing its decision to ask all manufacturers of these agents to place black-box warnings on these contrast agents. Gadolinium-based contrast agents are used by diagnosticians to heighten the image quality of a magnetic resonance image (MRI).The announced black box warning in May of 2007 came as a result of...
A University of Ohio professor and some assistants have uncovered some scary results about toys that are targeted for Halloween this year: shocking levels of lead content. In original reporting by CBS news, Professor Jeffrey Weidenhammer and his staff have uncovered dangerous levels of lead in a toy called "Ugly teeth." The fake plastic teeth aren't only ugly, but have about 100 times the...
The Arizona Cardinals were on their way to the stadium on Sunday when two police motorcycles accompanying their buses crashed into one another. A police escort of two motorcycles was riding with the team to the field when the officers' cycles unexpectedly collided.According to Washington D.C. police, both officers sustained minor injuries in the accident. The officers were treated in a nearby...
A government study to be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finds that so-called MRSA 'superbugs' are twice as common as was previously thought. Nearly 19,000 people died in 2005 after becoming infected with drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals and nursing homes.Beginning in 1970, doctor began to observe infections that weren't easily treatable with typical...
ConAgra Foods Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska stopped production of its Banquet turkey and chicken pot pies at a Missouri plant after linking over 165 cases of salmonella poisoning to the pies. While at least thirty people have ended up in the hospital as a result of eating the pies, ConAgra contends that the outbreak of salmonella is due to consumers undercooking the pies.Although the company...
The federal government is planning on requiring warnings for certain contrast agents used with ultrasound technology. These contrast agents are used to improve diagnoses of heart problems in patients evaluated with ultrasound imaging equipment.The contrast agents are sold under the brand name Definity, by Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Optison, of General Electric. Physicians inject the imaging...
