Home defibrillators now being sold on Amazon.com

Royal Philips Electronics has announced that the Philips HeartStart Home Defibrillator is now available over-the-counter (OTC) to consumers at Amazon.com, the largest online retailer to offer the product.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently cleared the HeartStart Home Defibrillator for sale without a prescription, making it the first and only defibrillator to obtain OTC status.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death in the United States, claiming approximately 340,000 lives each year -- more than traffic accidents, house fires, handguns, breast cancer, prostate cancer and AIDS combined. Defibrillators provide treatment for ventricular fibrillation, the most common cause of SCA, by delivering a controlled electrical shock to restore a normal heart rhythm. For each minute that passes before defibrillation therapy is administered to a victim, the chance for survival decreases by about 10 percent. It takes an average of nine minutes for emergency professionals to reach a victim in a typical community.

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