Congress is investigating whether Johnson & Johnson carried out a second secret recall of faulty pain relievers last year, as a major probe of a dozen J&J recalls escalates.

In the first such recall, packets of possibly defective Motrin were quietly bought from stores across the U.S. in spring 2009.

E-mails just released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform show a contractor hired for that job wrote to colleagues that his company was considering a “similar but potentially larger recall for July involving Children’s Tylenol” for J&J. It’s still unknown whether that happened.

“The facts we are uncovering in this investigation are extremely troubling,” the committee chairman, Rep. Full Post…

State health officials reported Thursday that California is on track to break a 55-year record for whooping cough infections in an epidemic that has already claimed the lives of nine infants.

At least 4,017 cases of the highly contagious illness have been reported in California, according to the state. Data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control show 11,466 cases nationwide, though the federal numbers are known to lag behind local reporting.

Whooping cough is a cyclical illness that peaks in number of infections every five years. Symptoms are similar to the common cold, making it a challenge to diagnose, which in turn makes it difficult for officials to determine if the worst has passed, said Dr. Full Post…

An infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: Bacteria that have been made resistant to nearly all antibiotics by an alarming new gene have sickened people in three states and are popping up all over the world, health officials reported Monday.

The U.S. cases and two others in Canada all involve people who had recently received medical care in India, where the problem is widespread. A British medical journal revealed the risk last month in an article describing dozens of cases in Britain in people who had gone to India for medical procedures.

How many deaths the gene may have caused is unknown; there is no central tracking of such cases. Full Post…

A 15-year-old boy damaged his eyes while playing with a laser pointer he’d bought over the Internet, say doctors who warn that dangerously high-powered versions are easily available online.

One eye expert called it “a legitimate public health menace.”

The boy’s case is reported in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by doctors who treated him at the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland.

It follows two reports in June of similar accidents. British doctors said a teenager damaged his eyes with a high-powered laser pointer, and a British physician said his vision was affected for several months after he was zapped by his 7-year-old son.

Laser pointers are devices that resemble pens and emit a narrow beam of laser light. Full Post…