Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article titled "PROTECT Act Under Fire."
Following is an excerpt:
"The PROTECT Act seems a misnomer. Instead of protecting consumers the act actually eliminates vital consumer health protections," wrote Bradley Merrill Thompson, MRC general counsel. "The rush to avoid expert reviews of complex technologies with far-reaching health ramifications ignores the fact that we cannot separate the high risk from the low risk apps using broad terms in legislation."
Thompson went on to say that grouping the hundreds of different categories of currently available software into a "few simple buckets" is not feasible. "And that's the problem the backers of this legislation are confronting. With so many factors that determine the risk of a piece of clinical software, two Washington, D.C.-based advocacy groups are pushing legislative language that works about as well as a meat cleaver in surgery."
