Consumer Reports on the Device Mess

Consumer Reports magazine (May issue) has a mostly nice article on the problem of unsafe medical devices and inadequate FDA testing requirements:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-reports-magazine/May-2012/medical-devices.html

So why is the article mostly nice and not completely nice? The article explains, as we have in this blog, how the Institute of Medicine says that present-day device testing is inadequate (and an editorial in the magazine agrees). The article explains how the FDA continues to protest that everything's okay. The article also mentions in passing, "Congress is now debating a new law that would keep the present system virtually intact..."

What they don't provide is the missing piece of the puzzle, as we have discussed:
http://brodyhooked.blogspot.com/search?q=device+capitalists
http://brodyhooked.blogspot.com/2011/08/medical-device-industry-to-iom-drop.html
That is, the magazine does not tell us how vigorously the device industry, and the venture capitalists who get rich off it, have lobbied Congress, claiming that American jobs will flee overseas if the rules get even a tiny bit tougher. When the pockets of Congresspeople are filled with lobbyists' cash, funny how persuasive that argument becomes. Fortunately, the editorial opinion adds, "Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project is organizing patient-safety activists to speak up to Congress."