SPECIAL REPORT: Exporting pain: U.S.-made medical devices cause serious injuries, pain overseas
More than a dozen medical devices with troubled track records are made in the U.S. but exported around the world because they are not approved for use by Americans, according to an NBC investigation. They include implants for losing weight that instead led to emergency surgeries, stents that could cut into arteries they were supposed to save, and heart valves sold in Spain and Italy that, according to the FDA, caused severe infections and may have led to a 5-year-old’s death.
For U.S. companies, exporting medical devices is big business, valued last year at more than $41 billion. The investigation was part of a global project organized by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. More than 250 reporters in 36 countries worked on articles that began publishing Sunday.
Read more on this story at NBCNews.com and watch NBC's "Nightly News with Lester Holt" on Monday.
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