First, and foremost, that is a decision that you need to consider in consultation with your doctor. There are a number of factors to consider in dermining if a Guidant recall replacement is warranted. In many product recall cases, patients will know that their implantable pacemaker product is not functioning properly when it repeatedly goes off in a short period of time. For example, some patients complain of five or ten shoks within a short period (e.g. 24 hours). When they consult their cardiologist, they learn that the shocks were not necessary and that the reason is the defect in their unit. As a result, some of these patients are scheduling to replace their flawed models removed and replaced by a model from a rival company or from Guidant.

Attorneys representing these product recall patients have heard reports that even when someone with a Guidant recall device has chosen to have it replaced, that due to the large volume of cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator replacement requests, that there is a waiting list to obtain these units. In otherwords, for some of the time they have been on back-order. While we have yet to confirm this with the company, we hope that any delay will be short, so that those needing replacement units can get a Guidant recall replacement device in a timely manner. Thus, it is important not to delay in contacting your doctor to determine if you should get a replacement.

Apparently, Guidant has divided the product recall replacements into three groups to determine how quickly they need to get the replacement unit out. That is, where is the person on the "waiting list". These groups are:

1. Patients without a failure who should have the unit replaced;
2. Patients without a failure who should not have the unit replaced; and
3. patients with a failure who have suffered injury.