Patients seek retraction of their STJ leads

Dear STJ patient,
Please take advantage of the valuable information on the internet to educate yourself on the ongoing epidemic of Riata lead failure. Ask your doctor what safety measures are being taken to assure that your defibrillator is functioning appropriately and will react and deliver in the time of need. Call 1-800-PACE ICD and ask for patient services, ask the Representative who will be paying the much needed fluoroscopy bill from the hospital or if you must get DFT's, who is paying that bill? Look out for you. Do you really want to take the wait and see approach? Read the information provided by a credible source.

 

Whatever losers, go talk to your own patients.

 

Look guys we have a st junk rep sighting!!!! If you assholes would be honest and do your job we wouldn't have to talk to your docs or pts. Go back to sucking your thumb in the corner. You have nothing to say unless it's to apologize.

 

Funny. Only if it were that easy.

 

Hey STJ employees...watch the timing of this retraction request...it is motivated by a NY Times article that will be coming out this week about how poorly STJ has handled the Riata recall. This is a simple, grade school, diversion tactic and it won't work. Your leadership is failing you to the point of no return.

 

And here is the Barry Meier piece in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/health/flaws-in-st-jude-heart-defibrillator-shake-the-industry.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1333763156-pQS7uPB+KJueLPEWEWhtsg#

 

BINGO!!!!!

 

Thanks for posting and making the public more aware of a real problem with the medical device approval system with the FDA.

 

That's all you got out of this you moron?

 

To the above poster, yep....that's the response of a jackass from STJUDAS. All they get out of this article is that any wrong doing is being caused by someone or something else than the company's unethical, unsympathetic, unprofessional leadership with their mini-me koolaide drinkers. This is sad for the medical community, it makes us all look bad. Funk STJunk.

 

Is St Jude offering to absorb any cost to the patient for fluoro, DFT's, or increase of in office follow ups due to this recall? I have heard that they were working on a cost to the patient solution.

 

What did the almighty Medteonic do? Did they pick up ER charges for un intended shocks? Really what did they do?

 

Oh...me me me, let me answer this one guys....lets see, to my best recollection, MDT told the doctors and the patients and the world. Bumpy at first from the issue at hand, trying to figure out just what was going down but once everyone was on the same page, the field was educated on how to protect the patient, not the stock option. Uncomfortable conversations came about when encouraging a physician to abandon or extract a lead based on early warning signs of malfunction with an asymptomatic patient, LIA was created for those leads left in place. Proactive measures were taken for the patient. And still are as of this tiny lil second. ....sad I know, know your apponant.

You, on the other hand, the older ST Jude cans attached to the disasterous lead doesn't even have the ability to check the HV portion without causing pain to the patient. St Jude actually encourages the continued use of a lead with externalized cables because no harm no foul. Are these externalized cables breeding grounds for clots? You are a gutless company. I would never encourage an unneccesary procedure, but for gosh sakes, the patient got it put in to protect their life, they are not a company rep educated on device projected survivability, help them out. Talk to the doctor about the real concerns, stop batting the issue away.

 

So they didn't pay for anything?

 

Yes we do. We have reimbursement programs in place for inappropriate shocks causing hospitalization, device and lead reimbursement for faulty product performance and replacement etc.... Next question?

 

In your face.....stupid. Is St Jude going to do that?

 

Yes they did all that after they blamed it in implant technique for a couple years. No as failure rate approaches 50%. They are recommending replacement.

 

You would be better off looking for Easter eggs right now instead of once again twisting the truth and looking for a diversion of the truth. As I recall, your company blamed the implanter as well during your stiff lead perfs. Since you enjoy reading my posts, here's another......
Dr. Wes
Musings in the life of an internist, cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

FRIDAY, APRIL 06, 2012

David vs. Goliath: St. Jude Medical Seeks Retraction of Heart Rhythm Journal Manuscript
St. Jude Medical, a widely-used manufacturer of implantable cardiac devices, finds they have a bit of a problem with a form of insulation that surrounds wires contained in several lines of their pacing and defibrillator leads. They decide to pull these products from the market after substantial evidence that their leads' reliability falls below their standards.

A credible doctor, Robert G. Hauser, MD, known for his work in reviewing medical device safety issues, published a perspective piece critical of the post-market surveillance of the Riata leads in the New England Journal of Medicine. St. Jude Medical takes issue with Dr. Hauser, and publishes a rebuttal in the same issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Hauser then submits a paper to the scientific peer-reviewed Heart Rhythm Journal for publication. The paper reveals deaths that might be caused by St. Jude Medical's faulty leads. The reviewers feel it is an important paper to share with their readership. The paper is published.

Today we find that St. Jude Medical is REALLY not happy with Dr. Hauser and demands that his paper be retracted from the Heart Rhythm Journal on the basis of their competitor's lead data reliability that they feel was misreported. The same letter fails to mention their own quality issues.

They then issue a press release to assure viral media spread in an attempt to discredit the physician's findings far and wide before facts can be verified. They say in their press release that they are justified in their action because Dr. Hauser failed to come to them before publishing his article:

St. Jude Medical was not consulted prior to the publication, nor asked to validate any of the data against its returns analyses. Since the manuscript was published, the company has spent more than 300 hours attempting to reach the same conclusions as Dr. Hauser, but can find no way of analyzing the MAUDE database that reproduces the same numbers reported in the manuscript. The company has identified duplicate reports, inconsistent categorizations and failures to include all available reports.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an electronic SMACKDOWN!

Interestingly, word on the street is that a not-so-pleasant article about St. Jude's lead issue and the problems therein is about to be published in a major newspaper. (Addendum 4/6/2012 @ 11:07pm: Here's the New York Times article now in print)

As Shakespeare famously said: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

-Wes

 

Go away troll.

 

This is horrible. Poor patients.