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NASA Medicine United States Technology

FDA Authorizes NASA-Developed Ventilator For Use In COVID-19 Treatment (techcrunch.com) 26

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized for emergency use as outlined in the agency's COVID-19 guidelines a new ventilator designed by engineers working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The ventilator, which has an acronym because this is NASA we're talking about, is called "VITAL" (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally), and its design is being offered for free, licensed use for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. The JPL-developed emergency use ventilator is an intubation ventilator, meaning that a patient has to be sedated, with a breathing tube inserted all the way down their airway to assist their breathing. It's reserved for COVID-19 patients exhibiting the most serious symptoms, and even then is really designed for use only to free up availability of existing, fully approved ventilator hardware in the case of extreme shortages.

What makes VITAL most interesting is that it is made of "far fewer" parts than existing traditional ventilators, according to NASA, and it also can be assembled much more quickly, and maintained with less expertise and effort over time. The design provides for use for between three or four months, however, rather than years for traditional hardware, and is meant specifically for COVID-19 patient use, hence its simpler design versus models that are made to serve in a number of different medical situations. NASA's JPL is seeking commercial manufacturing partners for the hardware now that it has its authorization, however, in order to get it built in large numbers for distribution to hospitals in need.
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FDA Authorizes NASA-Developed Ventilator For Use In COVID-19 Treatment More

FDA Authorizes NASA-Developed Ventilator For Use In COVID-19 Treatment

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  • The next desperate race (Score:4, Funny)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Thursday April 30, 2020 @10:57PM (#60009736)

    Next up, a desperate race against time to find a hospital that actually needs more ventilators!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ka9dgx ( 72702 )

      I hope nobody needs them... yet I still spend time getting to know motor controllers, quadrature encoders, and phase accumulators in an effort to build some.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      They are like those shrunken spare tires, just barely enough to do the job in the short-term if and when bleep happens.

    • Next up, a desperate race against time to find a hospital that actually needs more ventilators!

      Yeah, this situation mutates so fast we can't keep up.

    • Oh you bought into that fake news last week? Ventilators are actually in short supply in many hospitals. But extra ventilators probably won't help because the staff to run them are also on short supply and this style of ventilation requires lots of active supervision.

  • "At the recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force, New York reportedly paid $69 million for ventilators to an engineer with no background in medical supplies."

    https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

    • I doubt the WH told NY to be totally idiotic, to order more than they need and pay 3x more than normal up front.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ly4 ( 2353328 )

        But it does look like the WH recommended someone because they replied to one of Trump's tweets.

        • No, it doesn't. It looks like someone in NY State is trying desperately to deflect responsibility for a bone-headed decision that could potentially cost NY State $69M.

          How does the state official not know who "directly recommended" this company? Strip away partisan opinions, this story makes no sense.

          Someone in NY State approved the purchase, which means someone had to submit it. Presumably either one of those two people were the recipient of this "direct recommendation" - how did they get it without having

    • This jumped out at me:

      Citing a state official, the outlet said that "New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force." It was unclear who specifically authorized the recommendation.

      So an unknown official "directly recommended" a vendor to NY State, according to an unnamed state official, who could not name the source of the recommendation.

      Seriously? This is what passes for journalism?

      This is a fact-free attempt to blame the WH for a stupid financial decision by some mid-level official in NY State.

      Wanna bet the "recommendation" took the form of a response to the tweet that read "sounds interesting, DM sent"?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ly4 ( 2353328 )

        From the original Buzzfeed story [buzzfeednews.com]:

        "A state official, speaking on background because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the terms of the deal, said New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force."

        That isn't 'we don't know who made the recommendation', this is 'we choose not to disclose'. It would be a stronger story if this was on-the-record, but this kind of sourcing is very common - heck, the WH uses it all the time.

        And one r

  • All these FDA approved ventilator designs get approved, only to find there isn't a crushing need for huge numbers of ventilators. Also, with a 3% survival rate for the elderly that get intubated, even doctors are looking for ways to avoid putting patients on ventilators. Then again, I see so many states going for early lifting of their lockdowns without testing, its going to be inevitable there will be enough horror stories of a (local) ventilator shortage to spike production (when it will still be too la

    • True enough. From what I've read, for any given region once there's there's been about 100 confirmed cases, it takes about 8 to 10 weeks for situation to run its course. Where I live, the 100 case mark was reached 25 days ago, so under optimal conditions the lockdown should end somewhere in the 1st 2 weeks of June. But I suspect it's going to end 1st week of May. Believe the stats on https://rt.live/ [rt.live] are gonna get ugly.

    • The survival rate for people going on to ventillators is abysmal. All indications are that the virus is not working as originally thought I.e. just attatacking the lungs with Ards- Acute Respiratory Distress - but rather that itself is a symptom of a larger whole body metabolic problem.

  • The ventilator, which has an acronym because this is NASA we're talking about, is called "VITAL" (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally) ... is an intubation ventilator, meaning that a patient has to be sedated, with a breathing tube inserted all the way down their airway to assist their breathing.

    The Accessible Remotely version requires removing the lungs, shipping them into orbit and using airlock cycling to pump the lungs. It's *super* expensive.

    Fun Fact: The prototype had a square tube to be inserted down the patient's round airway, but several of the engineers watched "Apollo 13" over a weekend and then decided to switch to a round tube.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 )
      No, the accessible remotely version... looks and is labeled identically, but has wireless connectivity so those who are deemed not worth keeping alive can be quietly allowed to expire without any direct human intervention or emotional ugliness.
  • It's over. The virus just has to fall over and stink still. The only problem is that the fat lady cannot sing, because she is drugged and intubated, on an overpriced ventilator.

  • Having worked in class 3 medical devices, the amount of paperwork to even get approval is insane, the part fabrication process is insane, the assembly is insane. How did they manage to deliver a ventilator in two months?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 )
      Contrary to the people that build things at NASA (who are politically required to take as long and use as much money as possible) the engineers are extremely good and extremely motivated... remember a lot of the stuff in Private space corporations was started at NASA, but is proceeded outside of NASA because NASA is basically paralyzed by politics. VTOL of rockets, reusability and expandible space stations were all prototypes at NASA, but got chucked because of politics... and now private companies are pick

  • The design provides for use for between three or four months, however, rather than years for traditional hardware

    So, it's simpler to build, easier to maintain, has reduced functionality, AND it's only good for 3-4 months use?

    WTF?

    • So, it's simpler to build, easier to maintain, has reduced functionality, AND it's only good for 3-4 months use?

      Sounds like it was build by Tata Motors.

      Just goes to show how little we /.ers know about ventilators.

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