The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "medical device companies" ...
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Bad to the Bone
When four executives of a medical-device company called Synthes went to jail for illegally marketing a bone cement—five patients had died after it was injected into their spines—Mina Kimes knew there had to be a compelling saga behind a case that had generated little coverage beyond local news articles. So she began digging, first with FOIA requests for never-before-published government documents, and then assembling hundreds of pages of court transcripts and internal company e-mails and reports. She used that foundation to begin the harder challenge: persuading Synthes employees, many of them terrified by the criminal case and the company’s intimidating chairman, to talk to her. With six months of grueling, old-fashioned reporting, Kimes succeeded, and “Bad to the Bone” is the masterful result. Not only did she persuade more than 20 current and former company employees to speak, but she also revealed a story whose disturbing breadth far exceeded the case presented in court. Her tour de force reporting raises profound new questions about the culpability of a key figure who wasn’t charged: Hansjörg Wyss, the reclusive and controlling Swiss founder and chairman—one of the richest people in the world—who made crucial decisions about how to sell the bone cement. This is a classic tale of corporate malfeasance: Warned by the government not to sell its bone cement for use in the spine, Synthes ignored the admonition despite clear evidence of lethal danger—a pig had died within seconds when the cement was tested on it—and encouraged surgeons to use the cement on people, five of whom died soon afterward. But “Bad to the Bone” isn’t just an exposé. It opens a window into a broader issue: how the medical system actually runs. Readers see how salespeople with no medical training advise surgeons—inside the OR during operations—on how to use their devices. They experience the tale of one surgeon who continues using the cement even after two of his patients died. Oh, and what sort of justice does Synthes itself receive? Wyss sells it, for $20 billion, to health care giant Johnson & Johnson, which praises Synthes’s “culture” and “values.” Corporate crime. Death on the operating room table. Secret e-mails. Surgeons on the edge. An imperious multibillionaire CEO. It’s a mesmerizing article, and Kimes’s reporting takes readers on a deeply unsettling journey that ensures they’ll never look at the medical system the same way again.
Tags: Medical devices; bone cement; Synthes
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Side Effects
"This series began in 2009 after learning that doctors at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine had been receiving payments from drug and medical device companies. It has grown into a much broader and deeper look at the pervasive influence of money in medicine."
Tags: FDA; Medtronic; medical research
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Misleading coding advice causes financial troubles, liabilities, for unsuspecting anesthesia, pain offices.
The authors investigated a claim that Medicare and insurance companies are paying for care they don't cover. Insurers are beginning to catch on and are seeking reimbursement. The ensuing chaos caused by misleading sales representatives means that medical offices are having to foot the bill.
Tags: Medicare; insurance; coding; medical device companies; sales representative; pain management; anesthesiologists; FOIA
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Do No Harm -- A Dateline Special
Dateline NBC investigated the actions and conduct of Sulzer Orthopedics, a leading producer of hip and knee implants worldwide. A major flaw in their manufacturing process triggered one of the most devastating medical device recalls in recent times. Not only did Sulzer mislead the public, but the company withheld key facts from the Food and Drug Administration. After the recall, the company began to recycle the faulty hip devices and put them back on the market.
Tags: FDA; hip replacement; surgery
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Medicine's Middlemen
An investigation by the New York Times revealed that "just two companies could determine which life-saving drugs and other medical products most of the nation's hospitals bought and at what price. As national gatekeepers for billions of dollars in hospitals supply contracts, these two companies used their unregulated power to enrich themselves through pervasive conflicts of interest and self dealing... Until the Times examined them, these two for-profit companies, Premier and Novation, operated as they wished. They claimed they saved hospitals money by buying in bulk -- but never had to prove it. As private companies with no government oversight, they refused to disclose how they did business, including how much money the makers of the drugs and medical devices were paying them to get supply contracts. In this environment, Premier executives collected millions in personal stock options from the very manufacturers whose company products they were supposed to evaluate objectively. The buying companies steered thousands of hospitals to manufacturers in which the buying companies themselves had a financial interest."
Tags: Premier; Novation; drugs; medical; medicine; conflict of interest; private business; stock options
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The Rascal
Inside Edition uses hidden camera to reveal deceit and high pressure employed in the sales of the nationally advertised "Rascal" scooter. The report shows how elderly, disabled consumers and their families have been victimized by Electric Mobility, a New Jersey company that produces the electric wheelchairs. The deceptive sale tactics have been taught by the company executives, one of whom was a twice convicted felon, the investigation reports.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; ethics; sales; business; direct marketing; medical devices; patients; salesmen; commercials; advertising; consumer affairs
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Risky Recycling
U.S. News & World Report's story about "... medicine's dirty little secret. Under pressure from HMO's, Medicare, and insurance companies to cut costs, thousands of U.S. hospitals are quietly recycling millions of disposable saw blades, biopsy forceps, and catheters for use in procedures from cardiac angioplasties to orthopedic surgery, putting unwitting patients at risk for injury, infection and worse. Proponents say the practice is safe and saves millions of dollars. (Critics call it) 'medical experimentation without patient benefit, written consent - or even patient knowledge.' The full consequences of instrument recycling are impossible to determine..."
Tags: FDA Food and Drug Administration medical procedures medicine Single-use disposable devices