NPR Diane Rehm Show: Failed Implants

New Questions About The Safety Of Hip Replacements 

Link to audio recording

The Diane Rehm Show WAMU 

Thursday, February 14, 2013 - 10:06 a.m

The Food and Drug Administration recently issued new warnings on the safety of some hip replacements. As part of our occasional series, "Mind and Body," Diane and her guests discuss what patients need to know about safety and cost of hip replacements.

Guests

Barry Meier staff reporter for "The NewYork Times" and author of "Pain Killer: A 'Wonder' Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death."

Diana Zuckerman president of the National Research Center for Women and Families.

Dr. Henry Boucher orthopedic surgeon at Medstar Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Md.

Sarah Brown CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and three-time hip replacement patient.

Kenneth Thorpe professor and chair of health policy and management at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.

Selling Sickness: People Before Profits

http://sellingsickness.com/medical-devices-under-scrutiny/

Selling Sickness 2013


People Before Profits


February 20-22, 2013
  
register today!

Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill
 

Washington D.C.

MEDICAL DEVICES UNDER SCRUTINY

Overtreatment, over-marketing, conflicts-of-interest and all the trappings of disease-mongering pertain not just to medical treatments, education, publishing, screening and drugs, but, increasingly, to medical devices, both the kind that are used IN the body and ON the body. It is clear from current scandals and investigations in the US and UK that the device approval and oversight systems are, according to the BMJ, “fragmented, poorly regulated [and] market driven,” and that, shockingly, “financial incentives prioritize manufacturers’ interests over those of patients, with no requirement for clinical evaluation of a devices’ safety or effectiveness.”

Digging into the background of medical devices is eye-opening for someone already familiar with medicines and their scientific and regulatory problems. It’s a whole new world of engineering and chemistry, radiation and plastics, chips and tags, etc.

What isn’t new is the revelation of a patchwork and antiquated approval and regulatory system based on levels of risk that seems more appropriate to tongue depressors than hip implants. We’ll be sure to take a look at this topic next February at “Selling Sickness, 2013.”