- And here we thought it was bad when companies stopped supporting old phones.
Remember VHS tapes, flip phones, or any other piece of tech that became completely obsolete? It was easy enough to dump your old gadgets and move on to the next technological marvel.
But what if you’d implanted a VHS deck into your skull? That’s the situation now facing hundreds of blind people.
Second Sight Medical Products was a company manufacturing revolutionary retinal implants that allowed blind people to see again, at least to an extent. But now the company is dead and gone, but their patients’ implants haven’t gone anywhere.
More than 350 people around the world are now walking around with unsupported, obsolete implants in their heads. Some of the devices have broken, rending them nothing but useless metal.
Others have been luckier and their implants still work. But what if they run into a software bug, or a loose wire, or a fried battery?
There’s nobody left to fix their devices. The life-changing technology has turned into just another pointless gadget.
Broken Devices and Promises
Barbara Campbell lost her eyesight completely in her 30s due to a genetic disease. In 2009, she received Second Sight’s Argus II retinal implant that allowed her once again to see variations of light and shadow.
But in 2013, while she was changing subway trains in New York City, she suddenly heard a quiet beeping. She recognized the sound as the Argus II’s “I’m powering down now” notification sound.
Campbell’s world went black again. Her sight has never come back.
At the time, Second Sight was still operational, but despite a few repair attempts, they couldn’t get the implant working again. Campbell could’ve had it surgically removed, but the operation came with considerable risks.
So, she decided to leave the implant in place. Today, the defunct hunk of junk is still in her eye.
Ross Doer got the Argus II in 2019. In early 2020, he received good news — his device was eligible for upgrades to further improve his vision.
But then, when COVID-19 rolled around, Doer heard that Second Sight was in financial trouble. Concerned, he called his rehab therapist at the company.
“She said, ‘Well, funny you should call. We all just got laid off,’” Doer told IEEE Spectrum.
“She said, ‘By the way, you’re not getting your upgrades,’” he added.
In the Dark
When Second Sight started the first trials of its Argus I implant in the early 2000s, the thing was hailed as a medical breakthrough. This was it — the marvel of technology that would do what only religious figures had done so far and let the blind see again.
Fast forward to 2019, and Second Sight discontinued the implants without so much as a notice. The company went almost out of business the following year due to a lack of funds.
Despite a successful fundraiser campaign, in February 2022, Second Sight is practically nonexistent. The company has announced that it may merge with Nano Precision Medical, which would use Second Sight’s tech to develop drug delivery devices.
This leaves the people with Argus implants in the dark – literally. The things are stuck to their heads, and there’s nobody to maintain or remove them.
But living with a piece of dead tech in your head isn’t even the worst part of it. The implants could prevent their users from receiving potentially life-saving medical attention.
Take Doerr, for example. He had always felt a bit dizzy after using Argus II for a few hours, but that was always a well-documented side effect.
In 2020, though, the dizziness became severe vertigo. Doerr’s doctors wanted to give him an MRI scan to rule out a brain tumor, but they couldn’t — the Argus II could interfere with the MRI machine.
Instead, Doerr got a less-comprehensive CT scan. That didn’t find anything wrong with him, but it also didn’t answer all the questions.
“I still don’t know if I have a brain-stem tumor or not,” Doerr said.
Next, the Brain
Not all hope is lost, though. Some clinicians and surgeons who helped put the Argus devices into people’s eyes are scrambling to help them in any way they can.
Gislin Dagnelie, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, did research on the device. She’s set up a network of clinicians who are trying to develop the devices further.
However, this group’s efforts probably won’t help the currently implanted. Instead, they’re focusing on using the technology to help others in the future.
Indeed, many companies are still continuing to work on their own implants. Some of them aren’t satisfied with a mostly external device like Argus, though — they want to implant the things into people’s brains.
But what if those companies go bust? Will a defunct implant start messing with people’s brains?
For what it’s worth, Doerr sees a silver lining in his for-the-time-being functional Argus II. He’s glad his implant is at least just hooked to his eye.
“If it has to come out, it’s going to be bothersome [but] nobody is messing with my brain,” he said.