Page 16AFhe Battalion/Thursday, September 1, 1988
• *
Company says
defects were
in pacemakers
Man fights lender for hotel rights
AUSTIN (AP) — The Cordis
Corp. pleaded guilty in federal court
Wednesday to concealing defects in
thousands of heart pacemakers, and
four former executives were in
dicted for allegedly trying to cover
up the problems.
The battery-powered pacemakers
are implanted beneath the skin of
heart patients to regulate heartbeat
by electrical impulses.
Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner Frank E. Young
stressed that the defective pacemak
ers have long since been the subject
of notifications to physicians, and
are no longer on the market.
“Basically the defects were the
sudden loss of the ability to control
the heartbeat — the pacemakers
were not pacing,” said Diane Cossin,
spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s
office.
The problems affected “thou
sands” of pacemakers sold from
1980 to 1985, according to the in
dictment, which gave no precise fig
ures.
A statement released by Assistant
Attorney General John R. Bolton,
head of the Justice Department’s
civil division in Washington, and by
interim Miami U.S. Attorney Dexter
Lehtinen, called the case “the most
significant felony prosecution to
date” under the 1976 Medical De
vice Amendments to the FDA law.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — It was a
cold November day in 1966 when at
torney and expectant-father Patrick
Kennedy looked out a downtown
hospital window toward the vacant
grounds of his alma mater, St.
Mary’s University School of Law.
The international exposition
HemisFair was two years away and
Kennedy knew the city needed hotel
rooms in the tourist area. So as his
daughter was being delivered, Ken
nedy devised a plan to turn the Colo
nial Spanish-style campus into a lux
ury hotel with a view of the River
Walk.
Kennedy’s gamble in what became
La Mansion del Rio paid off. Tour
ists crowded into the hotel when it
“My biggest problem with this case is trying to under
stand why a company with over $100 billion worth of
assets and 100 years of reputable business dealings
would stoop to this practice, and that is the reason I am
willing to go through with this lawsuit. ”
— Patrick Kennedy
opened in April 1968 and have kept
coming since then.
Today, Kennedy is fighting for
survival and claiming that one of his
lenders. Metropolitan Life Insur
ance Co., backed him into a financial
corner to steal his hotels for its own
hotel management subsidiary.
It’s a lawsuit the hotel industry is
watching carefully.
Kennedy’s attorneys say his $7 bil
lion lawsuit against Metropolitan
could be a test case because it
charges that a lender, in calculated
moves, conspired to become a direct,
competitor with its borrower.
“My biggest problem with this
case is trying to understand why a
company with over $100 billion
worth of assets and 100 years of rep
utable business dealings would stoop
to this practice, and that is the rea
son I am willing to go through with
this lawsuit,” Kennedy said recently.
Metropolitan officials deny any
wrongdoing and say the case is a
simple contractual agreement that
Kennedy broke by not paying his
bills on time.
“I think you are seeing an abso
lute desperation move,” said Metro
politan’s San Antonio attorney, Sea-
era
:on
•elai
gal V. Wheatley. “I think tin
was to try to put the blame
where other than where itrej; ^ an
longed.
“What you have is a
ward loan met breechei
agreement with Mr. KpnrMuoi
Wheatley said. “He’s thret
bankruptcy and this suit
way to try to avoid that, b
he’s pushed way too far
very reputable company.”
Kennedy’s lawsuit charges)! lize '
politan with fraud, duress,
ence, deceptive trade prj;
Q
o le
A
aroa
breac h of confidential relation 1 ^ ) * e
unfair dealing and conspit;
what he claims was a concetti
tionwide effort
Dallas hospital handles crash victims
BEDFORD (AP) — They arrived in cars,
vans and ambulances — and this time, the.
modest-sized hpspital in suburban Dallas was
ready.
Harris Methodist H.E.B. hospital, the
nearest to Dallas-Fort Worth International
Airport, received most of the injured when
Delta Flight 1141 crashed Wednesday, killing
13.
And hospital officials said the grim lessons
from another Delta crash helped them pre
pare better for this one.
On Aug. 2, 1985, a Delta jumbo jet crashed
at the airport in a driving thunderstorm, kill
ing 137 people.
Following an investigation of that crash,
the National Transportation Safety Board
criticized the disaster response, saying no
coordinated effort was in place to handle the
victims.
“There was a lot of preparation done be
cause of the last one,” said Michael Muncy, a
lab technician at the 314-bed Harris Method
ist. “Everyone was right in place. There was
no wasted motion. We knew just what to do.
“The patients were great, too. They were
in incredibly good shape. I guess the shock
will come later for them. They went through
a lot.”
Other hospitals also reported the handling
of the injured went smoother.
Parkland Memorial Hospital reported hav
ing beefed its staff up to between 75 and 80
doctors by the time the first crash victims ar
rived.
Esther Bauer, a Parkland spokeswoman,
said during the Delta 191 crash, too many
S le were getting in the way. Since that
, the hospital conducts at least two emer
gency drills each year.
“It (the emergency plan) just needed a little
fine tuning in terms of getting the right peo-
f >le in formed and knowing where to be and so
orth,” she said.
Joe Dealey Jr., a spokesman for the airport.
said the weather had much to do i
chaos that persisted when Delta 191oj jperi
Wednesday’s crash occurred amiil
weather conditions
“We’re dealing with a different k® W ant
crash,” he said.
oppc
“There’s no comparison,” added Cp|
Taylor, of the Texas Department off jchoi
Safety station at the airport. “Everythin!
so smoothly.”
Dan Walker, 40, a veteranerian from
las, thought he was going on a lishnir:: was
Montana, but instead, he nursed brow
as he left the emergency room
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