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 "pacemakers" ...
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Heart Devices
This story explains how corporate and regulatory policies prevented doctors and patients from learning critical information about defects in heart devices such as defibrillators and pacemakers.
Tags: hearts; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; defibrillators; pacemakers; heart disease; regulation; health; healthcare
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Foreign Objects
A Star-Ledger investigation revealed that "while implants save or improve the lives of millions of people, thousands suffer in pain, disfigurement, immobility and, in some cases, death. The multimillion-dollar medical implant industry is supposed to be overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, but in fact it is regulated so laxly that devices often reach the market without clinical testing and with little oversight afterwards."
Tags: implants; medicine; artificial heart valves; pacemakers; dental implants; joint replacement; breast enhancements; Food and Drug Administration; FDA
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Replacement parts
The News & World Report investigates "how implantable medical devices gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration," according to the contest questionnaire. As the medical devices manufacturing business has grown over the years, so has the number of patients crippled or killed by the implantation of faulty pacemakers, defibrillators, heart valves, knee joints or spinal-fusion screws. The story finds that FDA allows for devices to be marketed before undergoing clinical tests, and is unable to monitor them once the devices are in use.
Tags: doctors; hospitals; business; corporate interests; patients; health
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"Bad law behind bad medicine"
The Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at heart catheterization, an operation that treats blocked arteries. The paper used a computer database to analyze more than 110,000 procedures and found that 323 people died from the procedure. The series also found that catheterization labs have proliferated in Ohio due to a loophole in the law, that there are ill-equipped hospitals doing the procedure and that low-risk hospitals have not been prosecuted for breaking the law by performing heart catheterizations on high-risk patients.
Tags: Angioplasty; Pacemakers; Medicine; open-heart surgery; Health Department Records; CAR; computer-assisted reporting.
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No title (id: 1045)
Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin runs a story on a doctor that is implanting unneeded pacemakers; the medical review agencies know it but have not stopped him; also finds a community hospital is performing an unusually high number of Caesarian sections, February - December 1985.
Tags: None