While watching Netflix’s original documentary “The Bleeding Edge” in association with the Shark Island Institute, there were four deadly inventions that were meant to speed up recovery and build trust and hope in patients but it backfired greatly. The costs were dysfunctional relationships with loved ones and chronic illnesses that affected their quality of life in the long run. The first one was a product called Essure that was advertised as permanent contraceptive for women, the second was a mesh marketed by Johnson & Johnson and the third was a hip implant that leaked out metals into the surrounding soft tissue and melting it; this showed an increased toxicity in an orthopaedic surgeon who had himself undergone the very same operation he performed on his patients, the fourth was a robotic equipment company called da Vinci that marketed on, you guessed it! Surgical robotics to aid doctors in the operation room.
One of the inventions is going to be shared and discussed on further.
The device industry is very well represented by their main lobbying group AdvaMed, AdvaMed and its member companies spent more than $64 million on lobbying in 2017.
“They have lobbied hard to see the standards for approval of devices watered down over the years.”
Dr Michael Carome, Director, Public Citizen Health Research Group
“Device companies release armies of lobbyists in order to influence politicians. And these politicians are vulnerable. They don’t know science. Its often a flowery and impressive language about how they put patients first. The want only the best.”
Jeanne Lenzer, Author, The Danger Within Us
“The medical device industry has incredible levels of influence in Washington, DC. They have provided dark money contributions, that are used to secretly fund political campaigns. Medical device companies also fund think tanks and patient advocacy groups that can go to Congress and make the case for them.”
Lee Fang, Journalist, The Intercept
“Perhaps an even worse problem is the revolving door. A number of FDA officials have both come from industry and then go back to industry after they’re at FDA. When they go to work for the companies, they can tell the companies all the tricks of how to get around FDA regulations, how to get what you want. Almost all the heads of FDA went on to work for industry.”
Dr Diana Zuckerman. President, National Center for Health Research
“We attract good people in healthcare, but there’s this tremendous hunger to have the latest gadgets, the newest technology, without the proper evaluation of that technology. So, we shouldn’t be surprised when some of that healthcare goes wrong. Most doctors do the right thing and always will to the best of their ability. But some fraction of the doctors respond to the perverse incentives of getting paid more for the more you do, regardless of the appropriateness of that medical care. There are kickbacks in the United States today that are entirely legal.”
Dr Martin Makary, Professor of Surgery and Health Policy, John Hopkins School of Medicine
The million dollar Da Vinci system, described as cutting edge, a revolutionary tool for all kinds of surgeries. “Da Vinci allows us to do remote surgery from about seven feet away from the patient. We work in a remote control console, sort of like a video game machine. We look on the screen, at the image from inside the abdomen. And we can perform the operation with remote control hands,” explains Dr Makary.
Da Vinci developed by Intuitive Surgicals are present in 64 countries. Intuitive is absolutely the dominant market leader in this field with a turnover of $2 billion dollars in the year of 2017.
“That is my vision for your future. Thank you.”
The video cuts off to Dr Catherine Mohr, VP of Strategy, Intuitive Surgicals who’s giving a TED talk.
There’s little evaluation to the outcomes. They target doctors as a doctor who could provide robotic surgery with the help of their technological instruments. The robot is a better option for certain operations but in many situations there’s no patient benefit. It may also add operation time including the risks. Women were recommended hysterectomies with the da Vinci robotics had a string of multiple health issues after the operation.
Note:
Moreover, the surgical team’s experience is vital for optimising the investment by reducing operating time, hospital stays, complications, and readmissions. Nevertheless, the literature is limited, and there is no consensus regarding the point at which the learning curve can be considered complete, leading to improvements in surgical performance and other patient outcomes. Evaluating the learning curve is challenging as it depends on many variables that are difficult to control, such as the surgeon’s prior experience, the quality of training, and the complexity of cases.
Hot on the trail:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0210573X2500005X
On further reading:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10445506
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625007683
Credit: The Bleeding Edge, Netflix, 2017
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