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The Australian medical industry association (MIAA) has accepted the senate committee's decision to review the National Health Amendment (Prostheses) Bill 2004, issued on March 2004. Under the bill, private health fund members will be charged an out-of-pocket payment for prosthetics used in surgical procedures in private hospitals.

The European medical device industry association, Eucomed, feels that separate directive is not necessary for reclassification of hip, knee and shoulder implants. The demand for more stringent control over implants by France and the United Kingdom are addressed in Medical Devices Directive review.

AFTER FOUR YEARS of debate on Capitol Hill, Congress has finally cleared legislation that will provide legal protection to chemical companies that supply raw materials used in the manufacture of [...]

Many suppliers of raw materials to the medical implant industry have stopped providing the materials, fearing that their products might subject them to large product liability lawsuits. As a result, Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John McCain introduced the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act in April 1997 as part of a broad product liability reform bill. In the meantime, manufacturers are attempting to protect suppliers by indemnifying them.

The Dept. of Agriculture has given Destron Fearing Corp. the approval to implant microchips in food animals, without being subject to concurrence as to anatomical implant sites in an animal. The move will clear the way for the South St. Paul, MN-based company to sell its electronic identification (EID) products to the livestock industry. The implantation sites that are deemed safe for implant are the subcutaneous areas on the scutiform cartilage at the ear base, above the dewclaw of the foot and in the infraorbital fossa in swine, as well as in the ligamentum nuchae in horses.

The Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) can classify implantable electronic identification (EID) products as animal food additives when there is a possibility that a unit implanted containing any nonedible portion of any animal, might become part of animal feed. Companies which manufacture animal food additives that are not covered by FDA food additive guidelines are exempted from CVM's regulations. CVM may also exempt companies which provide data on the possible effects of EID products on any food.

THE select group of firms that have used America's bankruptcy courts to stave off product-liability litigation gained a new member on May 15th, when Dow Corning filed for chapter 11. [...]

Life-supporting and permanently implantable medical devices must now be tracked from manufacture through distribution to the user, according to an FDA final rule published in the Aug. 16, 1993, Federal [...]