Congress set to pass repeal of Medical Device Tax: American jobs trump American lives?

The House of Representatives is again set to vote on the medical device tax repeal today. This tax repeal is likely to stimulate the medical device industry, as it has been touted. And, on the basis of its economic benefits, it is likely to pass through Congress with relative ease.

However, the vote comes at a politically inopportune time for the members of the United States Congress. Because a very serious public health deficit in the legislations governing the medical device industry has been identified.

Many members of congress are now fully aware of this deadly public safety deficit in the medical device regulatory space – Senator Casey, Senator Warren, Senator Alexander, Congressman Fitzpatrick, among others.

The safety deficit in the medical device industry is a serious one that has led to the unforgivable loss of many unsuspecting American lives.

But when Congress passes this tax repeal to the medical device industry, in a setting where there are no real safety regulations protecting people's lives, it will inevitably be stimulating "the good, the bad and the ugly".

Repealing the medical device tax, at a time when the FDA is failing to effectively secure the industry, would be a very significant dereliction of congressional duty to the American people.

Our only question is whether the congressional representatives who know of this serious safety hazard can bring themselves to economically stimulate this industry before securing it for the people – Alexander, Casey, Warren, Fitzpatrick…

Today's vote on the medical device tax repeal in the House of Representatives will be telling.

Hooman Noorchashm and Amy Reed, husband-and-wife physicians, have campaigned to ban electric morcellators since December 2013, soon after Reed's unsuspected uterine cancer was spread by the device during a routine hysterectomy.

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