[Gary_W]

I too am glad she is OK.

I'm amazed that static could cause a problem like this in the modern world.

Before I started selling medical equipment for a living, I used to fix it. Back then, I used to repair everything patient-related in the local hospital from defibs through infusion pumps. There was a pump 15 years ago (a general infusion driver for the hospital environment, not an insulin pump) that was affected by static, but when it was affected in this manner it would go to an alarm state. Once this was brought to the attention of the company in question via the Medical Devices Agency (a govt. body that deals with the safety of medical equipment) the company put out a warning notice to all users and set about modifying all the pumps so as the problem would no longer occur. The modification involved swapping out the control panel as (if a user was highly charged from a static point of view due to nylon clothing or whatever) the static could jump through the button membranes and affect the pump. The swapout fixed the problem. But bear in mind that even before this happened the pump failed in a SAFE MANNER; it did not over-infuse the patient and it gave an alarm so the user could decide what to do.

All pumps made these days have multiple interlocks and saftey features on them which ensure that, if a device fails, it fails in a safe way. That safe way may be 'no delivery' but it's safer than 'give the whole cartridge at once' for example. I'm afraid I cannot believe that the MM could fail due to 'static' and not tell you it had done so. It performs an awful lot of self checks every minute and if one of the checksums doesn't add up it will soon tell you that it isn't happy.

A big IMO here, but... The static problem told to you sounds like an off the cuff remark from a very dumb rep. If there was a genuine static problem with MM pumps, a rep certainly would not tell an end user whose daughter had suffered illness which may result in a lawsuit. Indeed, the company would be duty bound to inform the US version of the Medical Devices Agency (there will be one) and they in turn would take action. This action would be anything between a warning letter to end users, possible modification or total recall of the products. Not trying to be offensive, as I daresay this comment was said to you in good faith and obviously I only know the bits of the story you've posted here. But from my knowledge of the industry, such a dangerous fault would be dealt with in a manner other than a rep making a comment.

Gary