Medical Devices and Karen's Heart

Software Freedom Law Show episode 0x21

February 16, 2010

Karen and Bradley welcome Laura Moy, who joins them in studio to discuss the issues of software freedom with medical devices.

Running time: 00:50:54.

Bradley missed the opportunity to point out the classic “man in the street” interview has a Latin phrase to describe it, vox populi. Bradley could not find a definitive link that describes the origins of the “man in the street” interview, but did find references to it in the 1950s, and therefore it predates the origin date mentioned on the show (02:02)
Some medical heart devices have a wireless interface. (08:14)
Karen mentioned the Medical Device Research Center but meant the Medical Device Security Center. The paper describing how the center was able to communicate remotely with an ICD is called, Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses. This page shows a "programmer" in use. (08:35)
Karen talks about contacting the major heart device manufacturers: Medronic, Boston Scientific and St. Jude. (14:03)
As Karen mentioned, Medronic has a lot of patents, including System and method for remote programming of an implantable medical device, System and method of communicating between an implantable medical device and a remote computer system or health care provider and even Identifying patients at risk for life threatening arrhythmias. (15:15)

Karen explained that an electrophysiologist is a doctor who specializes in the electrical activity of the human heart. (20:58)
The FDA is the Food and Drug Administration which must approve all medical devices for use in the USA. (26:59)
Karen and Laura have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information how the FDA reviews these devices. (30:40)
Bradley only buys ECC RAM because it's actually possible and even common for RAM to be impacted by cosmic rays as discussed in this blog post. (33:10)
Bradley mentioned the importance of software freedom for medical devices, citing the Therac 25 case in the 1980s (36:32)
Karen discussed a recent series of articles in the New York Times about fatal radiation treatments. (37:22)