When most products have defective components, the resulting failure is frustrating but not dangerous to the purchaser or user. Pieces that snap or break off of common household goods and gadgets likely won’t pose a major risk to the public, although they may anger those who purchased the poorly made product.
However, there are certain products that, when they fail, almost guarantee catastrophic consequences for the consumer. Major medical devices are certainly among the items that are dangerous to consumers when they fail due to faulty engineering, inadequate quality control or improper manufacturing.
People rely on medical devices and expect them to operate without failure. In some cases, their lives may depend on that device doing what it should. When medical devices, like insulin pumps, fail, the people who rely on those devices could become severely injured or even die as a result.
Thousands of insulin pumps are currently under recall
For people with diabetes, administering insulin is the most direct way to manage blood sugar. Insulin pumps automate both the dosing and administration of insulin for those with diabetes, making them a wonderful solution for people who can’t tolerate regular pokes with needles. Unfortunately, if an insulin pump fails, a patient could get too much or too little of the insulin that they rely upon, possibly with severe medical consequences.
In a product failure that has resulted in at least one death and more than 2,000 injuries, Medtronic has issued a recall of its MiniMed insulin pumps. The models in this recall are specifically designed for patients with type 1 diabetes. If you or someone you know has the Model 630G (MMT-1715) or the Model 670G (MMY-1780), it could be impacted by the recall, necessitating careful review and inspection of the device.
Some defective products do substantial damage
Many product recalls are preventative measures that manufacturers or distributors perform to ensure that consumers don’t get hurt. Unfortunately, sometimes, those failures occur and hurt people before the company involved recalls the product.
A rapid recall with proper outreach to customers and clients can help a company limit liability, but no recall measure can fully protect a company from liability if it manufactures defective products that hurt someone. Consumers who get hurt by poorly made or poorly designed products, as well as the surviving family members of those who die due to faulty consumer products, may need to take legal action against the manufacturer to recover their losses.