Responsibility of manufacturers and consumers

Abstract

Man's functions are probed, monitored, altered, and substituted for by machines. The most vital activities of life are sustained by artificial respiration and circulation; death is diagnosed by absent waves on the electroencephalogram. The authority to construct these devices and the privilege of using them places an awesome responsibility on the manufacturer and consumer if the subject is to be safeguarded against misfunction or misdirection. However, the failure of manufacturers and physicians to accept this burden of responsibility has aroused governmental interest. In these days of social conscience, governmental agencies have assumed a role as guardian angels over the welfare of the governed as groups or individuals. The delivery of appropriate medical care is a small but obvious segment of the programs influencing life from birth to death in the conflict between the individual and his world. The interplay between manufacturer, physician, and government with the public as the ball