Today's (Saturday's) paper NYT is not much thicker than many days' editions of the Palookaville Evening Bladder. Front and center is an account of the hip-replacement biz, and in particular, the lack of warranty support. You buy a hip that's supposed to be good for 15 years, it lasts for three, the manufacturer says "sorry," end of story. No, it's not clear they say even "sorry."
But what really fascinates is the table on page three where the Times summarize the responses of hip replacement makers. Looks to me like four of the six companies named simply stonewalled, to one degree or another. It says here that Stryker ($1.3 billion gross in 2009 hip and knee sales) "did not respond to inquiries." Wright (a measly $0.1 billion) "said officials were unavailable for comment." Biomet ($0.8 billion) "declined interview; did not respond to written questions ..." Smith & Nephew ($0.7 billion) "does not warrant products; declined to elaborate on why it does not."
The two largest companies came closest to giving a response. Zimmer ($1.7 billion) says "implants fail in m any ways unrelated to device." DePuy ($1.4 billion) "deals with complaints 'case by case.'" Although I'm not sure either of these counts as a "response" so much as you might call what is known in the PR game as "cooling the mark out." Still, isn't it noteworthy that four out of the six manufacturers felt comfortable telling the Newspaper of Record to just go stuff it?
Afterthought: one of my tiresome tagline "jokes" is that I have reached the age where the warranty has expired on critical body parts. So life imitates comedy.
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