Investor lawsuit accuses Medtronic of failing to disclose insulin pump problems was posted by Mick Paul Taylor for MedTechDive.com, 13 September 2022.  

Investors have accused Medtronic of failing to disclose problems with its insulin pump business that led to the delay of a product previously tipped to drive growth. The securities fraud class action lawsuit focuses on the MiniMed 780G insulin pump. According to the plaintiffs, Medtronic “repeatedly assured investors” that the pump was on track to win approval and would enable it to close the gap on its competitors. 

Medtronic made the claims despite known issues with the MiniMed 600 series models, the lawsuit states, that ultimately led to a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration, which has slowed the review of the company’s diabetes products, and the removal of 780G revenues from the forecast for fiscal 2023.

Read more:  Investor lawsuit accuses Medtronic of failing to disclose insulin pump problems


Researchers just built a synthetic human gut microbiome. Now they can test it like never before was shared by Ameya Paleja for InterestingEngineering.com, 12 September 2022.  

Researchers at Stanford University have built from scratch the most complex and well-defined synthetic microbiome that will help us better understand the connections between the microbiome and human health.

The microbiome is a community of microorganisms that are found to cohabit in a given environment. The human gut has its own set of microorganisms that are markedly different from those on the skin. Over the years, the study of the human gut microbiome has attracted interest after researchers have found it to play a role in the moderation and modulation of a vast majority of diseases.

However, the collective nature of the microbiome makes it difficult to study the role of individual organisms and molecules in certain diseases. Our understanding of the individual components of the microbiome is so limited that even medical interventions involve the complete transfer of fecal matter from one organism to another. So, Stanford researchers Michael Fischbach and his team set about to develop their own synthetic microbiome in a bid to better understand the components.

Read more:  Researchers just built a synthetic human gut microbiome


A bit off-topic but fascinating!

Sex of Researcher Influences Ketamine’s Effects in Mice was published by Shawna Williams for TheScientist.com, 8 September 2022.

As New Scientist reports, they got different results when testing the antidepressant effects of ketamine in mice depending on which members of the lab conducted the experiment, which involved measuring how long the mice would swim when placed in a tank. Gould, a psychiatry researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, had read a 2014 study that found the presence of men, but not women, dulls mice’s pain, and his team also heard anecdotes from other labs about experimental results that seemed to be influenced by researcher sex. So they decided to test whether this could explain the inconsistencies they saw. 

The team reported in an August 30 Nature Neuroscience paper that the sex of researchers working with mice did indeed influence outcomes involving ketamine treatment, with the scent of human males triggering the release of a hormone in mice’s brains that enabled the drug to work as an antidepressant. The findings suggest that researcher sex may confound animal research in a variety of experiments—but the team says the work could also point the way toward making antidepressant treatments more effective in humans. 

Read more: Sex of Researcher Influences Ketamine’s Effects in Mice


Have we lost the “CARING” component in the healthcare arena?  What do you think?  
The Quest Diagnostics Care Replacement was written by Riva Greenberg for her website, diabetesstories.com, 15 September 2022.

Riva shares about her recent experience at Quest Diagnostics Lab … experiences I have shared often in recent months.  And I couldn’t agree with her more!

What greeted me at Quest was not a person, you know one of those animate objects that sit behind a desk, but a check-in machine. A most irascible one at that.

It wanted reams of information and needed to take photos of my ID and primary and secondary insurance cards, front and back. By the time I got to the last of the 10 screens, it told me I was more than 10 minutes late for my appointment. And I was by two minutes, but I wasn’t when I first started entering my name, letter by letter, box by box, on this beastly interference-runner between me and the technicians.

Not only did it tell me I was over the time limit to check in, but now I had to pick another appointment day and time. Well, I didn’t think this was fair, since I did start the process within the ten-minute limit.

I really do not understand why and how we are erasing care, the most healthful ingredient, from healthcare. Why and how we do not think this saving of money, and perhaps greater efficiency, is not biting us on the other end with the outrageous costs of obesity, diabetes, mental health, health insurance, suicide, and death?

Read more:  The Quest Diagnostics care replacement

 

 
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