New Hips Gone Awry Expose U.S. Kickbacks in Doctors’ Conflicts

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- A stabbing pain in the hip forced Mark Hirschbeck to abandon his post at third base during an April 2003 game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies.

He was 42, among the best umpires in professional baseball and unwilling to quit a job that paid more than $350,000 a year. Dr. John Keggi offered a hip replacement that could get him back on the field by 2004, Hirschbeck says. That didn’t happen. The ceramic joint made by Wright Medical Group Inc. shattered, leading to an infection and four more surgeries that left Hirschbeck permanently sidelined.

He later learned that Wright paid tens of thousands of dollars to a foundation Keggi helps run and gave him a trip to a conference in the Bahamas. Keggi recommended the ceramic device over the kinds of implants used in 97 percent of cases.

“He was in bed with Wright and picked their product,” says Hirschbeck, who is suing the company and the surgeon, alleging Wright’s product was defective and Keggi failed to install it correctly. “It’s disgusting it would come to that.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aixuKi35YC9g&pos=10

My wife once shared horror stories of payola being used to manipulate medical research data on heart catheters and such - not that the forces of evil necessarily succeeded, but they did try this nonsense out.