Pandemics Paralyze Pretty Much Everything
Our reliance on high-tech as extensions of ourselves has become a weakness. Revealed in the factory-paralyzed, current-Covid world; we are no longer in the position to simply buy replacements for any of our broken products, because they simply don’t exist.
In a “Gear” article published on May 19th, 2020 by WIRED, a tech and culture magazine based in SF, written by Lauren Goode, their senior writer who previously did work for The Verge and the Wall Street Journal, called “Right-to-Repair Groups Fire Shots at Medical Device Manufacturers”, Goode writes about the struggles of medical practitioners with medical equipment breaking down as a result of being used more than they normally would. Essentially, they write about how biomedical technicians are having trouble with repairing broken equipment such as ventilators due to many manufacturers limiting service information on their products. The article goes on to mention the actions of one of the major backers of the Right to Repair movement; iFixit and their CEO Kyle Wiens. They say that, having foreseen the possible effect of the pandemic on hospital personnel and equipment, they had endeavored to, “crowdsource one of the biggest databases ever for medical-device repair information” . Basically, Wiens asked the community to help build the world’s largest medical-device-wikipedia by asking the public for repair manual information. According to the article their database currently, “contains more than 13,000 files…everything from ventilators to ultrasound machines to X-ray equipment to anesthesia systems.” Other main points of the article are concerns over the cost and procedures required to receive approval to repair said equipment; with Goode providing stories from people within the medical field, citing that prices for repairs for equipment parts worth 80$ would turn to an atrocious repair fee of $4000 according to the manufacturer, as well as stories on the fact that the trend in the rising difficulty — from manufacturer resistance to repair fees — of repairing medical devices has only gotten worse within the past 40 years.
Manufacturer Monopolies have Paralyzed Essential Functions
In reading this article by Lauren Goode, I have realized that in times of emergency parts of our society will become paralyzed by our own doing, stemming completely from our non-sustainable way of life; the fact we live in a highly consumerist society. We buy products assuming the source is never depleted, and when it is, we must turn to maintenance to keep it functioning, however, due to monopoly power, repair has become impossible.
Almost all of our electronics consumption was being fulfilled by the First-To-Be-Covid’d China, who has since halted most of their production factories; it had already been halted two months prior to the announcement of the pandemic due to the Lunar New Year. Essentially, companies have had their stockpiles of electronics emptying without replenishment for upwards to 4 months now. This can easily be evidenced by the fact that practically nothing “new” is available anywhere for consumer purchase. Right now, whenever something important breaks, like medical ventilators, that something becomes a resource lost. The only way to replace it, would be to make a new one. This easily connects back to the topic of the Right to Repair movement, because the reason new ventilators would need to be made in the first place is if they are breaking and cannot be repaired. However, due to lack of information resulting from red-tape set up by manufacturers to ensure “quality” in their products, repairing is not an actual option.
How have we reacted to tying up our own feet?
The events following the pandemic has definitely alerted the government to product manufacturers’ ludicrous policies, because according to the article by Goode, “…And in April, five US state treasurers penned a letter to ventilator manufacturers asking them to make their repair manuals more accessible.” The government has realized the need to write manufacturers letters in order to have them lift some of that red tape; what the Right to Repair movement had been trying to do for years. According to Goode who is quoting Dr. Maria Andrae-Hammond, a doctor of John Muir Health around the San Francisco area, “It’s not that it could mean life or death — it’s definitely life or death, especially during a pandemic,”; it’s a simple conclusion here; have the equipment repaired before the patient expires. In this respect, manufacturers have paralyzed would-be-repairers with policies and the lack of information; biomedical engineers responsible for fixing this equipment cannot do their job without voiding contracts. For them, there is no second-guessing whether or not they should try to save someone’s life over equipment contracts; but even if they have the resolve to break contracts, they are still held back by the fact that manufacturers have refused to hand over the manuals needed to perform repairs quickly.
In times of emergency, our nation’s response has been paralyzed by politics, contracts, laws, and manufacturers. I am fairly certain that the Corona-virus has significantly opened the eyes of the government; in that they now realize just how vulnerable the US has, and will, become to disaster. Perhaps it is due in part to the fact that we are still in the transition phase from analog to digital, that we are so vulnerable in terms of infrastructure. We are confidently and ignorantly walking towards the new age by way of a rickety bridge that constantly threatens to break apart whenever a gust of wind sweeps past. This kind of problem and concern has been around for quite some time, but personally, I never really thought that it could become reality so quickly. I previously encountered something similar in an article from the New York Times written by a Captain in the USMC about the need for the ability of their men to repair vehicles in times of emergency. It draws an incredible parallel to the current situation; it is like it was brought to life within the 3 months that I had read that article. In fact, it was one of the first articles I wrote about for this topic, and now, it is basically a reality. If there were to be an analogy; currently, we are building what I would consider a MacBook style nation; the more faith we put in others to fix things for us, the less capable we become and in turn, the less people there are to fix things for us. If everyone wants someone else to do it for them, nobody will be able to actually do it, and when we actually need that somebody, he’ll be chained down by Apples.This may not look like war, but it sure as hell is. There is one against the pandemic, and another looming beyond the fog of war in the distant future. I imagine this is only a taste of what that would be like, with a solution only found in building a stable enough infrastructure, with Repair being one of them.
Citations
Ekman, Elle. “Here’s One Reason the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Its Own Equipment.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/opinion/military-right-to-repair.html.
Goode, Lauren. “Right to Repair Groups Fire Shots at Medical Device Manufacturers.” Wired, Conde Nast, www.wired.com/story/right-to-repair-medical-equipment-ifixit/.
Matthews, Ashley. “Five State Treasurers Call On Manufacturers To Release Ventilator Repair Manuals.” Pennsylvania Treasury Keystone Icon, 14 Apr. 1970, www.patreasury.gov/newsroom/archive/2020/04-14-Call-On-Manufacturers.html.
