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Medtronic’s INFUSE Product Confirmed To Do More Harm Than Good

July 5th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Research
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The Spine Journal has published a special June issue focusing on Medtronic’s INFUSE product, or rhBMP-2, a bone growth product commonly used in spine fusion surgeries. A journal news release states:

A critical review of 13 industry-sponsored studies on a spine surgery product found that the actual risk of adverse events was 10 to 50 times the estimates originally reported. The product in question is recombinant bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2), a controversial synthetic bone growth factor often used as a bone graft substitute in spine fusion surgeries. This eye-opening study, “A critical review of rhBMP-2 trials in spinal surgery: emerging safety concerns and lessons learned” is included in a special BMP-focused issue of The Spine Journal.

The comprehensive review found four main areas of concern among the 13 original industry-sponsored studies:

• Conflicts of interest were either not reported or were unclear in each study. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Spinal Fusion Device: “From Revolutionary Advance To Public Health Alert”

August 30th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
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There are many stories journalists could report on about conflicts of interest and questions about evidence in the treatment of low back pain, perhaps especially with spinal fusion. We talked about many of these with journalists from the American Society of News Editors in a workshop at the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making in Boston in May.

John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel hammers one of these issues, looking at how Medtronic’s Infuse product “went from revolutionary advance to public health alert.”

Here’s his story on MedPageToday: “Spinal Fusion Device: A Bone of Contention for FDA.” 

His entire series entitled “Side Effects: Money, Medicine and Patients” is indexed on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel website. The image below is from the Journal-Sentinel’s online story:

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*