Diabetics who rely on Abbott glucose monitors are alarmed by recall linked to 7 deaths

A manufacturing problem in millions of Abbott glucose sensors for diabetes patients has been tied to at least seven deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide.

Michael Ford was not in good health, but his Type 2 diabetes was manageable. His son, Davonte Ford, was his full-time caregiver — bathing Michael, administering his medications and dutifully responding to the dips and peaks in Michael’s blood sugar.

When father and son woke one November morning in their Oakland, California, home to a low blood sugar alert from Michael’s FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus sensor, part of a top-tier glucose monitoring system from medical manufacturer Abbott, Davonte did not question the reading. Instead, he did what doctors had instructed: He gave his dad fast-acting carbohydrates.

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Davonte had no way of knowing that eight days later, Abbott would release an urgent warning notifying U.S. consumers that about 3 million FreeStyle Libre 3 and Libre 3 Plus sensors were at risk of producing false low readings, and the company had received reports of seven deaths and more than 730 serious injuries worldwide. He also had no idea that the number that kept appearing that morning on Michael’s device was “catastrophically inaccurate,” according to a lawsuit that Davonte, 25, filed last month.

So when a cup of coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar barely raised Michael’s blood sugar, Davonte brought him another. The number on Michael’s monitor edged up but then went back down.