After the Guidant fiasco this summer, makers of defibrillators are under pressure to disclose any possible defect in their implants. You might say they’re “subject to penetrating scrutiny” … or “the heat is on” … or “radiation from outer space is draining their batteries”:
“As you may be aware, background cosmic radiation bombards the Earth constantly,” reads St. Jude’s letter dated Oct. 6. “While the Earth’s atmosphere acts as a shield and absorbs much of the cosmic radiation, some amount of high-energy particles do arrive at the Earth’s surface.”
Apparently, those rays can cause a memory chip to drain the battery, sapping the devices’ ability to shock the heart, according to the letter. St. Jude, the smallest of the three players in the ICD market, was able to mimic the effect in a nuclear laboratory, prompting the advisory to doctors and US regulators.
No deaths or serious injuries have been linked to the flaw in the Photon DR, Photon Micro and Atlas VR/DR defibrillators, which are used to correct irregular heart rhythms, according to St. Jude. What’s more, the incident rate is very low. Testing showed that perhaps 60 devices out of 36,000 might be affected, the company said.
We’d venture to guess that frequent fliers will be at greater risk. But it’s worth re-iterating this point: cosmic ray exposure isn’t always a bad thing.
Flashback: Medgadget Archives on Guidant
St. Jude Medical press releases page…
(hat tip: KidneyNotes)
Professor Joseph Chaiken of the Department of Chemistry at Syracuse University, has patented a technology that might result in a non-invasive and pain-free glucose meter. The technology is based on Raman spectroscopy and is called LighTouch™. From the Syracuse University press office:
The Center for Food-Drug Interaction Research and Education, an organization co-managed by the University of Florida, College of Pharmacy, and the Tufts University School of Medicine, has opened a website that helps clinicians (and patients) to identify and analyze possible food-drug interactions. Currently, only interactions of meds with grapefruit juice is available. From the website:
Human embryonic stem cells are touted as pluripotent cells, that are able to differentiate into any human cells. Hence is the idea of replacing diseased cells–such as beta cells in diabetes or dopaminergic cells in Parkinson’s–with new ones from the stem cell line. But how about creating cancer-killing cells from the stem cell line, and opening a new front in combating the big C? Well, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota has done it:
Many of us who work in hospitals have an anecdote 
Researchers at Hebrew University are developing a simple blood test to screen for anxiety. This could open the door to a new era in psychiatric diagnostics, and should challenge the perception that such disorders are “all in your head” (they seem to be in the blood, as well). IsraCast’s Iddo Genuth 
