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doctors to make better decisions.

Doctors and medical practitioners will be reluctant to

rely on devices that lack third-party listing.  The only

consumers who would use such devices would be those willing

to bear a great deal of risk.  Riskier devices, such as

implantables, require a doctor for their installation, and

complicated diagnostic and treatment devices that require

specialized knowledge for their operation are prohibitively

expensive to operate outside of a clinical setting.  It is

difficult even to conceive of a patient being successful in

forcing his doctor to implant an unsafe pacemaker or buying

a radiation therapy machine for his own unsupervised use.

As a final preventative, there is that store of knowledge

the FDA has habitually denigrated or denied: the consumer's

common sense.

"Fly-by-night" manufacturers, by definition, are not

concerned about the long-run effects of reputation on prof-

its.  The market cannot prevent such producers from taking

devices to market, but their devices will not be certified.

Shoddy products will not get the mark, and will therefore

sell for less.  Thus, the market will be protecting itself

against fly-by-nighters by supplying two interrelated types

of information: a specific certifier's mark, or lack there-

of, and the price.  Under the current regulatory scheme, one

government-mandated amount of information is supposed to

cover all contingencies, and there is no information about

effective devices that involve more risk than the FDA has

decided to allow.  There is much less information under the

present regime than consumers or their doctors would have in

the free market.

Anything man-made can break down and cause disastrous

consequences.  Likewise, no quality certification scheme can

work so efficiently that it never approves an unsafe device.

Some FDA mistakes have been mentioned, and UL makes an occa-

sional one as well.

A New York Times reporter summarized the result of one

UL mistake:

Two decades ago, hundreds of homes nationwide were

damaged and dozens killed or injured in fires

caused by aluminum wiring, a product that UL had

listed.  Numerous other fires were reported in

commercial establishments.  Investigations showed

that aluminum connections at outlets and switches

could deteriorate over time and overheat.  Eventu-

ally, the wiring was no longer installed.64