MEDICAL DEVICES

It was a tweet that alerted me to a documentary about the dangers of medical devices. The video was released in 2018 on Netflix and, since I'd cancelled my subscription to that service, I had to go looking for it. I found without much trouble on the Internet Archive located at this address. This came as something of a surprise.

It was an unsettling film that focused on what went terribly wrong with particular types of hip socket replacements, meshes, contraceptive devices and robotic surgery The documentary highlighted the glaring deficiencies in the approval process for these devices, the deceptive marketing and poor reporting of adverse side effects in patients.

One person interviewed commented that the medical technology industry had more influence than Big Pharma. Medical devices require only one trial on a group of patients instead of two for pharmaceutical products and grandfathering permits the possibility of no trial at all. If it can shown that a new device requiring approval is not substantially different from an earlier one that has already gained approval, then no trial is needed. This grandfather loophole has been egregiously exploited by those peddling their medical technology wares.

At the heart of the problem lies the so-called "revolving door" that means that highly placed officials at the FDA (or its equivalent in other countries) are given jobs in the medical technology industry after leaving the agency or prominent figures in the industry are appointed to high level jobs in the FDA. This is exactly the same as what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. The industry ends up overseeing itself. 

Some medical devices are useful and even life saving but care needs to be taken before making use of them. The problem is that prospective patients simply take the medical professional's word that the device is safe which can prove a dangerous mistake. As technology progresses inexorably, it's likely that more medical devices will be aggressively marketed without proper safety studies being carried out.

The documentary is just another reminder of how badly the medical "profession" has failed to work in the best interests of its patients. It's therefore up to the patients to work out what's the best solution to their health problems. They need to take charge of their own health and not passively accept the advice of a doctor who may well be ill-informed, acting in their own self-interest or simply uncaring.