Cory Doctorow::

13 years ago, the US Dept of HHS awarded a contract to design low-cost, reliable ventilators to Newport Medical Instrument of Costa Mesa, CA. The ventilators would cost <$3k, allowing the US to procure a shit-ton of them against future pandemics.

This was a problem for existing med-tech giants, who charged >$10K for competing ventilators…

So Covidien, a med-tech giant, paid $100 million to buy Newport and killed the project.

Covidien is now a division of Medtronic.

Medtronic has been leading the fight to kill off an open artificial pancreas, which could free people with diabetes from dependence on meds. These people become “ambulatory inkjet printers, dependent on manufacturers for overpriced consumables to keep their fucking organs working.”

Medtronic pacemakers and defibrillators “can be wirelessly hacked to kill you where you stand.”

And Medtronic has worked with other companies to kill state Right to Repair bills, which is one big reason hospitals are now struggling to keep lifesaving equipment going during the pandemic.

Philips now has a contract to deliver artificial ventilators. It hasn’t shipped.