More about money in health care.
The New York Times reports: "As the Guidant Corporation came under scrutiny last spring for not telling doctors about potentially fatal defects in its heart devices, the company's public message was upbeat and insistent: concerns about the safety of its products were overblown, it said, and perhaps even irresponsible. But newly released documents show that, inside Guidant, executives were struggling to contain a mounting crisis. The records illustrate how a series of miscalculations by Guidant, like its misreading of doctors' tolerance for being kept in the dark and its initial decision not to recall the devices, put the company on the defensive. "
According to the Times, in 2004, Guidant's heart device division accounted for about half of Guidant's $3.8 billion in sales. Defibrillators, which cost up to $35,000 each, have a profit margin of about 75 percent.
One physician says in the story, "I will not work with a company that put profit and image in front of good patient care and honesty in device manufacturing."
Posted by schwitz at February 28, 2006 07:27 AM | TrackBack