Organizations Email Urges Right to Repair Action

The letter below was emailed to HTM professionals regarding the Right to Repair.

“In late March, I reached out to warn of a rumored effort by medical device manufacturers to change the FDA’s definition of “remanufacturing” in a way that would include many activities that have long been considered standard service, repair or refurbishing.

Sign our letter to tell Congress not to adopt this change that would bypass the FDA’s public process and hinder independent repair of medical devices.

A bill has now been introduced that would have huge impacts on the ability of hospital and ISO biomeds like you to continue servicing medical equipment. It would undermine all of the progress we have made on Medical Right to Repair over the past couple years.

The manufacturer lobby has shopped this bill as a “non-controversial” clarification. In fact, it introduces more confusion by making any act that “could” change performance or safety specifications, including changes to the design of a piece of equipment, remanufacturing. It comes just a month before the FDA is due to release the final guidance around which the agency engaged more than 80 stakeholders and the public in order to come to an appropriate solution.

Make sure that Congress hears from the biomeds repairing critical medical equipment across the country. Sign our letter today.

Along with our allies at IAMERs and the Alliance for Quality Medical Device Servicing, we have been meeting with members of Congress to tell them that this is in fact a controversial bill that would have a detrimental impact on competition in the medical device servicing space, leading to worse patient care and higher healthcare costs. But our decision-makers in DC need to hear from you—the hard-working professionals on the frontlines that this would affect most—before the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee meets early next week.

So far, 51 of your colleagues have signed the letter. Can you help us reach our goal of 200 signatures by the end of the day Friday?

Thank you for all of the important work that you do. We’ll keep working to make sure that our leaders in Congress hear your voice.

Best,
Kevin
—
Kevin O’Reilly
Director, PIRG Campaign for the Right to Repair”