HEALTH

Heart Valve Payments Urged: A consumer group urged the government to require the manufacturers of a mechanical heart valve, found to be subject to fracturing inside patients’ bodies, to pay for the cost of having the valves removed. The manufacturers, Shiley Inc. and its parent company, Pfizer Inc., said the action was unnecessary because they have already agreed to make such payments in a settlement of a class-action suit pending in federal court in Cincinnati. The consumer group Public Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader, said it doubts that this settlement will be approved, partly because it “does not, in its present form, adequately address the needs of . . . patients.”