AFP: Hunt vows to tackle hip implant scam.

Hunt vows to tackle hip implant scam

(AFP) – 2 days ago  

LONDON — Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has vowed to crack down on a “completely unacceptable weakness in the regulatory system” which allowed potentially dangerous artificial hips to be implanted in patients.

Hunt admitted that an investigation by the Daily Telegraph and the British Medical Journal had revealed that patients were being put at risk by the import of substandard artificial hips and other medical devices.

The report caught European medical regulators, authorised to license products for sale in Britain, secretly advising some Chinese and Indian firms to market the equipment as “made in Europe“.

One Hungarian regulatory body told undercover reporters how to use a “front address” in the European Union to convince buyers that products were made on the continent.

“Like many people, I was shocked and appalled to read in the Telegraph yesterday that a regulator in Europe said that it was ‘on the side of the manufacturer’ when it comes to licensing products — such as hip replacements,” Hunt wrote in the paper.

“These words undermine everything I believe about the health sector in Britain.”

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