[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H2228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  UPCOMING PRODUCT LIABILITY MEASURE PROMISES FREEDOM TO RAW MATERIAL 
                      SUPPLIERS OF MEDICAL DEVICES

  (Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, thousands of Americans even at this moment 
are benefiting from medical devices that have saved their lives or 
improved their chances for good health, knee and hip joints and brain 
shunts and pacemakers, all sorts of ingenious devices that over the 
years have improved the health care capacity of our Nation.
  Yet, they are in danger, these device makers, these wonderful people 
who are developing these kinds of apparatuses for the improvement of 
health. They are in danger of losing their capacity to produce them 
because of suits against the suppliers of the raw materials that go 
into these medical devices.
  Next week we are going to take a giant step in trying to prevent the 
slowdown of the production of these medical devices by putting in with 
the product liability measure that we will be considering a safeguard 
against the raw material suppliers, so that they will feel free to keep 
supplying these components that make these wonderful medical devices.

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