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.
A normal glucose range is around 70 to about 180 milligrams per deciliter, with lower levels expected while fasting. Mystified that Michael’s level kept hovering around 68 mg/dL, Davonte gave him a cup of sweetened tea and a cookie, hoping to get the number up.
Instead, Michael’s speech slowed. His eyelids became heavy. Panicked, Davonte called an ambulance. When paramedics arrived, Davonte was stunned to see Michael’s blood sugar reading on their equipment: 551 mg/dL, more than triple what it should have been.
“My heart just dropped,” Davonte said. “Obviously, there’s a problem here.”
The discovery that Michael’s blood sugar had not been as low as his glucose monitor indicated came too late, the lawsuit says. The next day, in a hospital intensive care unit, Michael, 68, died following multiple cardiac arrests.
Diabetes, a condition in which the body doesn’t produce enough insulin or cannot use it properly, requires patients to monitor their blood sugar vigilantly. It affects an estimated 40.1 million people in the U.S. Uncontrolled, it can cause serious complications, ranging from blindness to heart and kidney damage.
The Abbott recall has put a spotlight on diabetes patients’ growing reliance on technology meant to help them and the threat it can pose to their physical and psychological health when that technology is flawed. The recall prompted at least three proposed class action lawsuits in the U.S., along with Davonte’s wrongful death lawsuit. Three other people in California, Washington and North Carolina plan to sue over harm they say they sustained from the incorrect readings, their attorneys told NBC News.
Patients and attorneys have also raised questions about whether the recall was comprehensive enough and whether the true number of injuries could be higher than the 860 that Abbott cited in its latest count. Michael’s death is not counted in Abbott’s tally; while his sensor came from one of the recalled lots, Abbott did not include its particular serial number in the recall.
Abbott spokesperson Lindsy Delco told NBC News that the company was “deeply saddened” by Michael’s death and said that it takes all adverse event reports seriously, documenting and investigating them.
Delco said not all sensors in each lot were affected by the problem and not all adverse events are related to the recent recall, adding that anyone experiencing issues should contact Abbott customer service.
She said the faulty readings that led to the recall were caused by a production line issue that was quickly fixed. The company has not yet responded in court to Davonte’s lawsuit.
When continuous glucose monitors debuted more than two decades ago, they were a “complete game changer” for diabetes patients, said Dr. Amy Warriner, an endocrinologist and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s medical school. An alternative to reliable but tedious finger sticks, in which diabetics draw small amounts of blood throughout the day to check their sugar levels, continuous glucose monitors automatically detect blood sugar levels in the fluid just below the skin’s surface with tiny filaments on sensors attached to patients’ arms. The Abbott sensors, about the size of a stack of two pennies, typically cost up to $20 per month for patients whose commercial insurance covers the system, and they offer 24/7 data that doctors say is dependable.
“But it is technology,” Warriner said, “and sadly, technology can break. And when it does, it’s a life-or-death situation.”
There have been smaller recalls related to continuous glucose monitors. In 2024, Abbott recalled several lots of Libre 3 sensors due to inaccurately high readings. Another major manufacturer, Dexcom, recalled hundreds of thousands of receivers linked to its monitors in 2016 and again in 2025 following dozens of injuries because of audio issues that could cause missed alerts. A Dexcom spokesperson said in an email this week that the problems have been resolved.
Some diabetes patients who used Abbott sensors say that discovering flaws in a device they rely on to stay alive is terrifying. Before receiving a recall notice from her pharmacy, Angela Ivery, 71, who lives in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, said she went to the emergency room multiple times following alerts from her Libre 3 saying her blood sugar was low. At the hospital, a finger stick showed her glucose levels were normal, she said.
She started having nightmares in which late relatives gave her warnings about her health, and she feared that she would die in her sleep. She now uses finger stick readings, but she said she has lasting anxiety.
“I don’t go out and mingle like I used to,” she said. “I’m paranoid when I get out. I think my sugar is dropping.”
Late last year, Cathy Bennett, 67, of Statham, Georgia, started receiving alerts from her Abbott continuous glucose monitor saying that her blood sugar was in the 60s. When she checked it with a finger stick, though, it was in the 170s or 180s. Her sensors’ serial numbers were not listed on Abbott’s recall website, but she believes they should have been. She has encountered others on social media who said the same thing.
“It’s very disappointing,” she said, adding that she loved the device and plans to try using it again. “It helped motivate me to make better food choices.”
The recall has also highlighted the potential for dangerous confusion after a product is supposed to be removed — even at large hospitals. An endocrinologist who works at a regional trauma center in the mid-Atlantic mentioned in an NBC News interview that he had just sent a patient home from the hospital with an Abbott device. Afterward, he called back to share a startling discovery: He checked the serial number of the sensor he had given to his patient and realized it was part of the recall. He called the patient immediately to arrange for a replacement and told the hospital to throw out the box of recalled sensors.
While continuous glucose monitors are generally considered accurate, the American Diabetes Association said in an email that finger sticks should be available as a backup, particularly if symptoms do not match the monitor’s reading.
In Miramar, Florida, Philip Myers, a Marine veteran, relied solely on his FreeStyle Libre, until the readings seesawed from the 50s to over 200 one evening in June. He stopped using it.
Six months later, he received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs informing him that his sensor had been recalled. The letter did not mention the deaths associated with the recall, and when he and his wife learned about them from a reporter, they became emotional.
“When I was in military service, I was in control, and I made the decisions,” Myers, 80, said. Trying to manage his diabetes, especially with a device that turned out to be inaccurate, “feels very hopeless, to tell you the truth, because you’re not in control at all,” he said.
Delco, Abbott’s spokesperson, did not answer questions on specific cases and said in an email that the manufacturer cares “deeply about the safety and quality of our products and the people who use them.”
“That’s why we continually check how they’re performing and if we identify an issue, we take action to fix it,” she said.
Davonte and Michael Ford relied entirely on Michael’s continuous glucose monitor, not knowing based on Abbott’s “woefully inadequate” warnings that the sensor could malfunction, Davonte’s lawsuit says.
Davonte tries to remember his father for who he was — a selfless man who loved playing the piano — rather than his father’s painful final moments, which he said have traumatized him and left him feeling empty. He said he is also fighting a sense of guilt.
“I felt like I was at fault,” he said. “Everything was always well — until it wasn’t.”