The Economist reported that in 2010, Fresenius Medical Care “sold 55% of new dialysis machines.”  An international healthcare giant, Fresenius Medical Care also designs and manufactures dialysates – chemicals used to clean the blood of patients whose kidneys no longer function and therefore must undergo dialysis – such as GranuFlo.

 

Tragically, in 2010, 941 people died from cardiac arrest while using GranuFlo.  And while GranuFlo had been named as the cause of these cardiac arrests by November of the following year, this information was kept secret until anonymously leaked to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, prompting a recall.  Read more on FMC’s role in the dialysis industry here.