“Two months after Mr. Oukrop’s death, the Guidant Corporation, the country’s second-biggest maker of heart defibrillators, acknowledged that it had not told doctors for three years that one model had short-circuited in about two dozen cases, including the one involving him,” reports The New York Times. (Registration required. No fee for most items.)

“Guidant, which has said it did nothing wrong, has characterized the student’s death as a tragic event. But it turns out that the same type of electrical defect that destroyed Mr. Oukrop’s defibrillator also caused another heart device from Guidant to malfunction.

“Short circuits involving that device, an advanced pacemaker that also contains a defibrillator, have been associated with the deaths of three patients. Guidant said recently that it was aware of 49 short-circuit reports involving both devices, out of a total of 42,000 units produced, a malfunction rate that the company has characterized as low.