Our government counts on market innovations in health care. It also allows companies to abandon these innovations as they please, with little concern for the harm it can cause Americans who depend on them. In an op-ed for Stat News, Claudia Jazwinska explains how the health care marketplace and our government can fail Americans who rely on health care innovations.

Thousands of different implantable devices are in use around the globe, helping people. But, market pressures mean that these devices might not be reliable over the long-term. For example, hundreds of Americans rely on an implanted medical device in order to see. The Argus II is a retinal implant. But, its manufacturer, Second Sight, has stopped manufacturing it to avoid possible bankruptcy.

When Second Sight discontinued the Argus II, people using it were left without vision and with an extremely expensive implant in their brain. They had no clue whether the device should be removed and, if so, who had the skills to remove it. They were left at serious risk because they had opted to use cutting edge technology, and the government did not step in to protect them.

No one wants to inhibit meaningful innovation, which regulation can do. But, people who rely on medial innovations also need protections.

The National Institutes of Health is continuing to support research from Second Sight even though it failed to continue the Argus II. The NIH is not supporting the patients who relied on its implantable device. It does not seem concerned about investing in companies that are not able to continue to service innovations that Americans rely upon them.

Jazwinska asks why does our government allow companies to sell costly devices to Americans and then abandon them, especially when these devices are implanted into their bodies? At the very least, companies should be held accountable for doing so. Isn’t it negligence or malpractice to leave these people in the lurch?

One solution would be to require these companies to make their proprietary devices open-source if they are discontinuing them. Other companies should be allowed to replicate them. Americans should not bear the burden of a company’s inability to continue a valuable technology.