It’s easy to jump on the recall-hype bandwagon; honestly, it makes for easy writing that tends to catch a lot of eyes. However, we here at Medgadget also seek to do diligence to reality. According to a recent study put out by the Cleveland Clinic, there’s not much of a statistical increase in risk associated with the recalled devices from Guidant and Medtronic.
The study, which was reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, looked at about 1,660 patients who had defibrillators implanted between August 1996 and May 2004.
According to the study, after having the defibrillator for an average of 3.9 years, the rate of deaths in patients with a device subject to a Class 1 recall, which is the most serious type of recall, was 32.3 percent. In comparison, those with a non-recalled product faced a 33.4 percent mortality rate.
In the interest of keeping everyone informed, it’s important to note that device recalls are less about statistical risk and more about failure root-cause analysis. If your device shorts out and you can’t say why (or give a good reason why it won’t happen again), they start using the “r-word.”
(Please pardon the continued re-use of the Ah-nold graphic, there really aren’t any other images associated with the word “recall”)
Link to the article at Redherring.com…