He was also the lead author of the influential (but controversial) 1999 New England Journal of Medicine DECREASE study on the use of bisoprolol during vascularsurgery.
Rather than diaper businesses, Covidien buys higher-margin medical-device makers in areas like vascularsurgery and brain monitoring, where it can develop new products that will add to revenues in two to three years.
"I would be very happy if Medicare would put a moratorium on any invasive carotid treatments" in people without stroke symptoms, said Wesley S. Moore, UCLA's chief emeritus of vascularsurgery and author of a leading text on vascular and endovascular surgery.
She and others in vascular medicine grew concerned that the purportedly "definitive" NIH study of stents versus surgery wouldn't be definitive at all, because there was no third patient group getting drugs only.
Charles Simonton, chief medical officer of Abbott's vascular division, said that carotid stenting has a similar net outcome in patients to carotid surgery, and therefore should be covered more widely by Medicare.