More than 200 people with diabetes have been injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly due to a problem with a connected mobile app, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
More than 200 people with diabetes have been injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly due to a problem with a connected mobile app, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
Medical devices go through FDA testing and have had software engineers writing closed source code for 40 years. For the most part medical devices remain pretty safe.
And yet
Yes, mistakes will happen sometimes when there are billions of devices out there. And if you think just having code in the public will prevent future mistakes I have a bridge to sell ya.
I love how whenever you advocate for this kind of improvement, someone always feels the need to try and dismiss you because “it still won’t mean the world is perfect”.
You assume I’m under some delusion that if only enough people were allowed to check, every mistake would be caught every time.
I’m not.
And you’re being rude about it.
Lol I just said it wasn’t blind faith, that there was an effective agency and you started linking statistically irrelevant data. I never said it can’t or shouldn’t be improved simply that you were factually wrong. Devices go through considerable testing at multiple worldwide bodies and in general these programs are mostly effective at weeding out dangerous products.
Cool.
Unfortunately firmware-related problems especially is something regulatory bodies haven’t kept up with. They’ll test the device, sure. But not necessarily every line of code that might ever interact with it.
Overall they are operating under outdated levels of complexity while medical device manufacturers are running ahead with wireless functionality, mobile apps, over the air updates, etc.