FDA Fines Red Cross Another $4.6 Million

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration has fined the Red Cross an additional $4.6 million for the distribution of "unsuitable blood products," bringing penalties against the organization to more than $19 million in recent years.

The FDA issued a letter Wednesday stating that it reviewed 113 recalls of blood products by the Red Cross from April 2003 to April 2006. The recalls involved the release of an estimated 4,094 unsuitable blood components.

Agency officials noted that having to conduct a recall shows that safety protocols were breached. For example, a donor may not have been appropriately asked about international travel or intravenous drug use.

...

Red Cross officials said it was taking several steps to find problems in the collection and distribution of blood supplies. It's increasing supervision at blood drives and consolidating processing facilities. Its goal is to meet the FDA's standards for quality and safety, officials said.

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/06/AR2008020604217.html

[Demit]

1. But the company who provided defective armor to the troops gets fined only $2M & gets their contract

renewed besides. To read both these stories in the same day—I'm struck anew by the total fuckedupness of the government in this country.

[flashl]

2. The fuckedupness deepens when you compare the current defective armor story to "body armor" Brooks

January 7, 2006
New York Times

Pentagon Study Links Fatalities To Body Armor

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor.

“The ceramic plates in vests now worn by the majority of troops in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

“The shortages come down to money and priorities. In 1998, Interceptors (state of the art vests) were available and issued to armies around the world."


The Rise and Fall of a War Profiteer
by Sarah Anderson, AlterNet
July 13th, 2006

In November 2005, bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks made national headlines when he blew a pile of his war windfalls on a celebrity-studded bash in New York City’s Rainbow Room. For Brooks, the highlight of the $10 million gala was a performance by rockers from Aerosmith. So pumped was the middle-aged Long Island businessman that he reportedly donned a hot pink, metal-studded suede pantsuit to cavort onstage with Steven Tyler.

While Brooks was enjoying his rock star fantasy, dark clouds were forming over him and his company, DHB Industries. The stock was in the toilet, the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating him, and then there was the mood-killing matter of the military recalling his company’s bulletproof vests over concerns about their bulletproofness.

Corp Watch

Body armor CEO seeks release from jail

The former head of the leading supplier of body armor to the U.S. military, facing federal charges in an alleged fraud scheme, may be freed after two months in jail but only under house arrest, a judge has ruled.

...

Prosecutors say he garnered more than $185 million by falsely inflating the value of the inventory of DHB's top product, a vest designed to withstand rifle fire and shrapnel, and then selling company stock after the doctored accounting boosted its price. He is also accused of failing to report bonus payments and using company money for lavish personal expenses.

Miami Herald

Brooks is awaiting release from jail on charges related to stockholder fraud of his armor vest company NOT the bulletproofness question.

[pingzing58]

3. WTF I can't believe this. Recalls ok but injury and deaths? Any, huh? Idiots.

[KakistocracyHater]

4. It's so very 1890s

so I was off by a decade, the Mauve Decade has been reloaded in the double os. Use the law against personal rivals, break the law wherever you can get away with it, rewrite the law when anyone influential starts getting uncomfortable.