Whistleblower Files Lawsuit Against HP, Agilent

A complaint was filed against Hewlett-Packard (HP) and its spin-off, Agilent Technologies, by a former employee, citing a "scheme to defraud its customers by knowingly selling defective and potentially dangerous medical devices."

The lawsuit, filed by Robert Hindin on behalf of himself and the state of California in San Francisco Superior Court, estimates that over a six-year period, from 1991 to 1997, HP distributed and allowed to remain in use thousands of such inferior medical devices.

The medical devices cited in the suit include Anesthesia Gas Monitors; Pulse Oximeters, and Ultrasound Imaging Transducers. According to the lawsuit, HP had falsely certified to the government that it had complied with FDA requirements, including reporting each product failure, investigating these failures and addressing the problems.