Patients and healthcare professionals can now search more than 76,000 recalls, safety alerts and field safety notices relating to medical devices.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists today adds two new countries – France and Brazil – to the first-ever global database of medical devices.
ICIJ’s International Medical Device Database draws on both public sources and responses to requests for information from governments.
Today’s update, which is one of many to come, means patients and doctors will have access to more than 5,900 new records. Users can search by device name, by manufacturer, or by country.
The data from France is current through early September 2018, and Brazil’s data is current through June 2018.
The database is part of ICIJ’s Implant Files investigation that discovered fewer than 20 percent of the countries in the world had public data online about medical device safety alerts, field safety notices and recalls.
Since publication, the Implant Files has already triggered reactions in different parts of the world. In Canada, health authorities announced an action plan to improve oversight of medical devices. “The government of Canada agrees that more can be done to further strengthen the oversight of medical devices and to be more open and transparent with Canadians,” said Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor in a statement.
In Europe government regulators and consumer advocates are calling for stepped-up measures to protect patient safety, while in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration said that it will enact the “most significant modernization” of medical device approval.
ICIJ is making the data available in the public interest to provide vital safety alerts, and potential recourse to patients who, in most parts of the world, have had no place to find such information until now. ICIJ will add data from more countries as it becomes available.
Anyone who is aware of information that could add to this effort is encouraged to share tips with ICIJ and the Implant Files journalists, who will continue to investigate and build this public service database.
