This makes me think of Norton in fight club discussing recalls.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Seven Diabetes Patients Die Due to Undisclosed Bug in Abbott's Continuous Glucose Monitors
(sfconservancy.org)
A times B times C equals X...If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
The older I get, the more I understand (I mean, really understand) Tyler Durden. And I hate that this is so.
Edit. Put the parenthetical in the wrong place
Damn, I gotta watch that movie again.
You can only really see it once.
FDA mandates how recalls happen, pharmaceutical or medical device.
Do they still exist?
De facto or de jure?
They have to have information.
Had a relative with a toddler that almost died due to his GCM overreporting his levels.
My mom had one and learned immediately not to trust it.
I'm shocked that both people I know personally had those devices turn out to be uselessly inaccurate....
Abbott claims they're good for 14 days of use but my experience is that they're worthless after 5 to 10 days. The first 5 days of use they're about as accurate as the Dexcom units (typically +/- 10%). Beyond that they start to read increasingly low (-50% to -80%) with readings often failing entirely by day 10 or 11. It wouldn't be a problem if you could replace them after 5 days, but if you do that insurance pitches a fit and refuses to cover more of them because "they're good for 14 days".
I’ve used Libre 1 for years, they work reliably. They will usually fail in the first hours of use, but otherwise work well for the 14 days.
Always keep a standard glucometer at hand, because these monitors can be affected by temperature and humidity.
Is this behaviour for a particular sensor, like the Libre 2, or do all of Abbott's sensors do this?
It was my experience with the libre 2+ and the libre 3. I've never used the libre 1 so I couldn't say if it applies to that one. That said the 2 and the 1 don't really qualify as CGMs as you need to poll them for glucose readings and I believe they're limited on polling frequency (something like once every 5 min) so they're much closer to a traditional glucose monitor than they are a true CGM.
My favorite part about the continuous monitors is that they really show the incompetence of the clinics that are supposed to be managing us diabetics. There is a freaking option to share the data with your doctor (this is dexcom's system thingie), but mine just asks for my account information so they can login with that and get the data. Like, whyyyy?!? You could manage all of us from one account rather than logging in a thousand different times.
Then we get to the bullshit terms and conditions, where the real hate begins... fucking device maker can go hog wild with all of our data and share it with whomever they want. Can't use the device, after all, unless you agree to it. HIPAA is basically dead at this point.
Oh, and I also know from firsthand experience how much the cheaper devices can suck. The tandem pump drives me low just about every day. It absolutely blows balls at using the readings from the continuous monitor, while omni and medtronic do just fine.
Thats why I use open source. It puts a ton of responisibility on the user but it's 100% worth it. Look up xDrip+ for Dexcom and AAPS for SAP (/closed loop systems).
Thanks, I will.
Dexcom is more reliable.
Unfortunately I am severely allergic to the adhesive Dexcom uses that they claim is hypoallergenic.
From what I know about the US, this entire thread seems like a wet dream of a lawyer working on commission.
Nah, the pharmaceutical companies have covered themselves via reams of fine print. Using any of the GCMs (or pumps for that matter) means signing away all your legal protections and even if it didn't the companies have billion dollar lawyers that can easily crush any case brought against them. Unless you're a multimillionaire you literally can't afford to sue any of them.
That's the real flaw with the current US legal system (the civil one at least), individuals can't afford to bring cases against large corporations. Class action cases can make it possible, but even then the odds are in the favor of the corporations and even if you win nobody actually makes anything off of those besides the lawyers. Typically the lawyers take 50% of the judgement off the top and by the time you divvy up the remaining 50% among all the participants it's at most a few hundred bucks each if even that.
signing away all your legal protections
Does that include protection from false advertising, eh?
That's a misprint. It's supposed to say hyperallergenic.
(/s, in case that wasn't obvious)
Do adhesive barriers help at all? I live off the Smith and nephew one
I'm allergic to many of the barriers as well. There is one I found that I'm not allergic to and it does help a lot but it's not perfect. Near the end of the 14 day period the area the unit was inserted would often start itching and when removed would show signs of irritation.
More importantly though I found the Dexcom units to be worse than the Abbott ones in some ways. The Libre 3 has a fall off where it starts reading fairly accurately and then progressively reads lower and lower over time in a linear fashion. The Dexcom G2 on the other hand would start off somewhat inaccurate which could be corrected using a couple of manual glucose readings, but then as time went by it would get progressively more inaccurate in a random direction and no amount of recalibration using manual glucose readings would fix that.
Dexcom claims the margin of error is 20% and will replace any unit that starts reading outside that range, but at least for me that was literally every unit at some point. Some of them that was right out of the box, some of them that was after 5 days, but it always happened and it was unpredictable. I find the predictable decline of the Abbott units preferable to the random inaccuracy of the Dexcom units. At least with the Libre 3 I can estimate how far off the reading is based on how long I've been using it, with the G2 it was a complete crap shoot on whether the reading was accurate or not at any given time.
The Dexcom G2 is far more uncomfortable compared to the Libre 2, in my experience. The filament causes a red spot and aching in my arm, but the Libre 2's does not.
Insurance is more likely to cover the Dexcom. God bless Healthcare. 🙃
I eventually figured out that the Freesytle Libre will significantly underread if you sleep on it. I would recommend doing a finger prick test before acting upon what a CGM tells you to do.
Found that on day one, pretty sure it's even in the instructions not to put the sensor somewhere you'll put pressure on.
I've found this is really dependent on placement. If I put my libre a couple of centimeters away from the region I usually use, it'll read low all night, but as long as I stick to the zone I've determined to be fine, it'll agree with a blood test even if I've had pressure on it for ages. Also, the 3 is more forgiving than the 1 or 2 because it's smaller than the older models, so affects how much the skin bends and squishes less.
Freestyle Libre was my first CGM and as soon as I had the opportunity to switch to Dexcom, I did.
Each new sensor was wildly low or wildly high, with no option to calibrate. It was really only good for measuring changes, not the actual glucose reading itself.
So "Oh, it's going up, +5, +10, +20... probably accurate, but is it 80, 180, or 240? Use a finger stick to know for sure.
(Foreigner here) Could this be related to DOGE's defunding of the three-letter acronym agencies and all that? It seems like proper testing and reporting weren't being carried out. They say this has been happening since the 80s, but seven deaths is a little too much.
Probably not. These products take a long time to develop, and DOGE was only a thing in the last few months.
no, these products are well known to have alot inaccuracies in thier detection, thats why you should have a backup fingerstick glucose monitor as a backup at all times.
seeing this now feels great. two weeks ago i got a crt-d implanted and sure as hell...it is an abbot.
CGM is new tech and it is known to healthcare providers know how much it sucks. Dont worry about their pacers.
I work in health insurance and we get heads up when crazy shit happens we need to be ready to deal with and BOY was this big one!
The TLDR of this is abbot knows they fucked up really bad. They also know which sensors are fucked. They have a website you can use to look up if yours is affected. They will send you a replacement for free. They are also praying to corporate Jesus nobody sues but we all know that’s coming anyway.