10 years ago medical device spending accounted for approximately 6 percent of all U.S. health spending and in 2009 that number remained barely changed according to a new report.

The steady numbers come as medical devices rose more slowly in pricing than prescription drugs and other products in the industry.

The research, sponsored by the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) studied 400 companies ranging from bandages and basic supply sellers to pacemakers and other high tech manufacturers.

The study comes after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid determined that health expenditure had nearly quadrupled since 1989, currently bringing in approximately $2.5 trillion in 2009 with medical devices accounting for $147 billion.

The study was conducted as AdvaMed seeks to roll back taxes on medical device companies, taxes that were set into place during 2010′s healthcare overhaul and which will go into effect in 2013.

U.S. Medical Device Sales Remain Steady In Unsteady Economy is a post from: The Inquisitr

It there is one constant in our society it is that as soon as something new is created or invented someone, somewhere, will screw with it to benefit themselves. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our world of technology and the Web.

Barely a day goes by without one hearing about some network breach, some new malware or some social media service getting hacked. Yet after some minor bitching and OS flamewars we all return to business as usual. From consumers to developers we talk up a storm about security but when push comes to shove we all carry on as if nothing happened.

I’ve talked about this in the past at my home blog starting back in 2007 with this little tidbit

Facebook is taking further steps to curb abuse of their users by folks that want to screw with them. What took them so long? Did they really think that just because Facebook is the cool place to be that they wouldn’t get messed with?

Jeez.

Well here’s a hint you Starbucks latte drinking startups – get evil.

Really.

How anyone of you ever got past Web 1.0 without realizing that there are bad people out there who will do bad things so that they can benefit need a good smack in your PHP. I’m sorry but any Web 2.0 product that goes live without first having been trampled through by some evil people deserves everything it gets – including the bad press.

The thing is the situation hasn’t changed in the intervening years. Twitter gets hacked, malware spreads through Facebook and as soon as some new service gains in popularity they find themselves a victim.

I was reminded of this when reading an interesting post by Bill Thompson at the BBC Online where he was looking to the future and how potential technology will end up being hacked with potentially deadly effects.

I am confident that at some point around 2020 we will all be distracted by early reports that the latest display technology using smart contact lenses that draw images directly onto the retina using low-powered micro-lasers are being hacked into by unscrupulous criminals.

They will be replacing paid-for adverts with ones for their own illicit services while using the augmented reality data feeds that the lenses offer to steal personal data and infiltrate company networks.

While the idea of having your digital lenses being hijacked might not seem all that bad it is a different matter when it comes to thing like medical devices.

And in March 2008 researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst demonstrated that you could snoop on the radio signal coming from a combination pacemaker/defibrillator and reprogram it to deliver a potentially lethal electric shock to a patient.

Their experiment required several students and some expensive equipment to monitor and decode the signals from a Medtronic Maximo pacemaker, but it prompted significant concern within the medical profession because of the danger it exposed.

The reason that this was even possible was because the manufacturers never even thought the idea of someone wanting to hack into that kind of signal was something that would happen. They never thought anyone would have a reason to hack a person’s Pacemaker.

Medical device manufacturers are rushing to incorporate as much web technology in their products but as with much of the companies finding ways to use the Web as a part of their business they ignore the lessons of the past.

The lesson being that there are people out there who will try and succeed to do evil things with their technology. It is inevitable especially when we make it so easy for them.

Will we ever learn that people will do evil things? Probably not. is a post from: The Inquisitr