People with Apple watches could be monitoring their oxygen levels, but the regulators require that the ability be disabled for users. This is classic regulatory capture by the industry.
5 thoughts on “The FDA Strikes Again”
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People with Apple watches could be monitoring their oxygen levels, but the regulators require that the ability be disabled for users. This is classic regulatory capture by the industry.
Comments are closed.
I absolutely detest the very concept of governmental “oversight” of the private sector. Bureaucrats with unshakable prejudices use untested (and fundamentally untestable) models to stave off infinitesimal odds of an ill-defined negative consequence, and in so doing add millions of dollars and extensive delays to any progress in the fields they “oversee.”
Having spent almost a decade doing just that myself has convinced me that there can be no justification for it.
You have to wonder how many of the blood pressure monitors and such that you can buy off Amazon are even passably accurate. How accurate after 6 months, a year, more?
The ones you see in a hospital and, I hope, doctor’s offices are tested regularly.
Not an Apple fan but I’d trust them a little more than some random seller on EBay.
It was years before Apple were even allowed to enable the ECG app here. It’s insane how much governments cripple innovation in healthcare.
And here I just ordered an oximeter, probably junk, off Amazon, which will be here in a couple of week. FDA could at least allow this on an “experimental” basis. It should be trivial for Apple to toss together a “trend-watcher” app to let people see if their oxygen levels were falling.
I bought a pulse-ox meter at Walmart a few years ago because my wife needed it. You can pick ’em up OTC for like $30, maybe less–or you could before The Current Situation, anyway.
I just found out yesterday that my Galaxy S9’s heartbeat sensor also has a pulse-ox meter as well. Multiple versions of the Galaxy S phones have it–IIRC the 8, 9, and 10, but it’s semi-hidden, and in slightly different places on different phones.