How a veterinarian and a law professor joined a multidisciplinary team to help produce a made-in-Saskatchewan emergency-use ventilator during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An artificial respirator made by Both Equipment Ltd, Adelaide, South Australia, 1950-1959.
Belinda Christi/MAAS
During a pandemic, what would MacGyver do? He’d cobble together masks and ventilators from the things around him. Now health-care workers are doing the same. But there are risks.
Designers, engineers, makers and doctors worldwide have used 3D printing to produce products such as face shields, face masks, ventilator components, hands-free door openers and nasal swabs.
In under 10 days, engineers from UCL and Mercedes F1 reverse-engineered a product, produced a new design, tested it, got regulatory approval and started production.
Ventilators being made by British medical supply firm OES.
Neil Hall/EPA
Health insurance costs are rising and the price of prostheses such as hip replacements are partly to blame. But there is a way to rein in costs – and give patients more choice and better devices.
It’s not just women who are the losers following the latest TGA announcement. People with all types of medical devices need better regulatory protection.
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The proposed Australian ban of some types of breast implants is too little, too late. It also reveals regulatory failures that need to be fixed if Australian consumers are to be protected.
Nearly all medical product recalls are voluntarily issued by firms, instead of mandated by the FDA.
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Every year, thousands of medical devices and drugs are recalled in the US. But the decision to recall a flawed product is often left up to the manufacturer.
At last count, 11% of Australian women used long-acting reversible contraception methods.
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Unlike condoms, which need to be used every time with sex, or the pill, which must be taken every day, LARC doesn’t require any action after placement in the body and is immediately reversible.
Advances in technology mean it’s now possible to 3D print everything from prosthetic limbs to skin, bones and organs.
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Who should be legally responsible when 3D printed devices fail? Proposed changes to the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s regulatory framework have the potential to settle that question.
Australia’s medical regulator needs to do more about cybersecurity.
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Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration must learn to deal with software rather than simply bits of metal and plastic.
Embedded medical devices will continue to be vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. The pacemaker depicted is not made by Abbott’s.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney