This Week in Devices: Corrupt Science; New Bipartisan Effort for Medical Device Safety; Medtech Europe Highlights; Rare Earths Mining on the Rise

Corrupt Science

New Bipartisan Effort for Medical Device Safety

Medtech Europe Highlights

Rare Earths Mining on the Rise

A video gaming device could point to the next wave of medical devices

• Four US Senators have introduced the bipartisan Ensuring Safe Medical Devices for Patients Act which proposes to give FDA the tools it needs to improve oversight of medical devices.

• The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a 64-page report, Heads They Win, Tails We Lose, which outlines how corporations influence the use of science in federal decision making (including FDA approval of medical devices) to serve their own interests, and actions that can be taken to curtail this practice.

• Consumer Reports is fed up with the way FDA approves medical devices and wants the American public to share its frustration

• Couldn’t make it to Medtech Europe this year? You can view video highlights over at Medtech Connection.

• The UK’s National Joint Registry is calling for more monitoring of long-term safety, patient satisfaction, and total effectiveness of total knee replacements.

• Medical Electronics Design reports that the global rare earths market is expected to double by 2016, in part due to responses to China’s move to slash exports of rare-earth metals.

• Your kids might be playing with the next step in medical device technology. Researchers all over the world are adapting the Microsoft XBox 360 Kinect for a variety of medical uses.