Guidant expands defibrillator warning

A second safety warning from Guidant Corp., one of the nation’s largest medical device manufacturers, urged doctors to stop using five defibrillator models because they could malfunction and may have to be recalled.

Indianapolis-based Guidant announced its second worldwide safety advisory in a week on Friday, after voluntarily recalling seven defibrillator models last week. The pager-sized devices sense an irregular heart rhythm and shock the heart back into correct beating. At least 74,900 defibrillators are now under a company warning.

Doctors said the new problems could be corrected without surgery, but some patients have begun requesting devices from different manufacturers.

“Patients are nervous,” said Dr. William J. Groh, director of the pacemaker and implanted defibrillator clinic at Indiana University’s medical school.

Economy

Aircraft orders lift durable goods

Orders for durable goods may have increased by 5.5 percent last month – the biggest increase in 14 months – but economists cautioned that the increase overstated strength in manufacturing because it was inflated by a huge jump in demand for commercial aircraft.

Excluding the volatile transportation sector, new orders for durable goods fell by 0.2 percent last month, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The drop marked the third decline in the past four months for orders outside of transportation.

Demand for nondefense capital goods was even weaker, falling by 2.3 percent, the biggest drop since last October. This category is closely watched for signs it can give of business plans to invest in new equipment to expand and modernize.

Economists have grown worried that manufacturing, the hardest hit sector in the 2001 recession, could be showing signs of faltering again as businesses grow more cautious in the face of a surge in oil prices.