FLICKR, OKADOTS
Last Friday, a panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine (IOM)—a nonprofit health division of the National Academy of Sciences—released a report urging the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be more stringent in its regulation of medical devices such as defibrillators and artificial implants. The FDA commissioned the investigation after the recall of several faulty and dangerous devices already in the market, ScienceInsider reports.
One regulatory framework that the report says the FDA should scrap is the “501(k) clearance process," which allows devices an expedited entry into the market if the maker can prove they are similar to devices already in the market. According to a press release from IOM, the FDA’s process “lacks the legal basis to be a reliable premarket ...
