Up to a third of all heart bypass patients in the U.S. were given a drug called Trasylol, manufactured by Bayer.
The drug, used to stem bleeding during open heart surgery, may have been responsible for the deaths of 22,000 patients before it was withdrawn in November 2007 at the request of the FDA.
The drug was withdrawn after a study showed that the drug caused kidney failure. According to the study’s author, Dr. Dennis Mangano, if the drug had been taken off the market when he first published his research in January 2006, over 22,000 lives could have been saved.
On “60 Minutes,” Dr. Mangano said that Bayer AG failed to disclose that a German drugmaker confirmed the same dangers that Mangano had found.