Spurred by thousands of American women who were being injured due to faulty IUDs, President Gerald Ford signed the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 into law, granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) greater regulatory oversight regarding the safety and effectiveness of medical devices intended for widespread distribution. It was a historic consumer protection law intended to preserve public health and safety — but the legislation was also riddled with regulatory loopholes, particularly with respect to products that were already out in the market. Now, almost forty years later, Americans are still feeling the impact of the incomplete legislation as they encounter a multitude of common medical devices, including lethal products, that haven’t undergone adequate testing.

As The Atlantic reports, the medical device regulation bill contained lax provisions for classifying the safety of devices that are similar to products already available on the market, meaning that many contemporary devices do not have to undergo thorough testing simply because they were considered safe enough back in 1976:

The legislation created varying safety standards for devices that the FDA would deem as low, medium, and high risk. Medium-risk products, like surgical stitches, could be sold without first being tested on people under most circumstances, provided the device was “substantially equivalent” to one already on the market. For high-risk devices, like artificial hearts, companies were generally required to test their products in people and demonstrate to FDA that the products were safe and effective.

The law applied immediately to new types of devices and directed the FDA to retroactively classify existing ones, with one caveat: Products that were already on the market when the law passed would effectively be regulated as medium-risk until FDA officially classified them. The unfortunate result has been that some high-risk devices have won approval without being tested in people.

This interim solution was not supposed to last 37 years. Yet nearly four decades since Congress passed the Medical Device Amendments, the FDA still has not classified some of the temporarily “grandfathered” devices. As a result, potentially high-risk devices are continuing to reach the market without ever being tested in people.

The contemporary high-risk products that still have not undergone human testing due to the loophole include aortic balloons for heart surgeries and automated external defibrillators (AEDs). After thousands of faulty hip replacements caused a public health outcry over the last several years, Congress finally took action in 2012 to give the FDA more authority to re-classify the so-called “grandfathered” products. But while the FDA has taken action to re-label hip replacements, “19 grandfathered device types remain unclassified.”

Unfortunately, congressional procrastination on public health and safety measures is depressingly standard, as the FDA’s regulatory powers consistently lag behind until a crisis erupts to force lawmakers to make a change. Last year’s deadly deadly meningitis outbreak stemming from lax standards at a Massachusetts-area compounding pharmacy illustrates the trend perfectly. Lawmakers eventually responded to that crisis by introducing legislation to give the FDA more power to oversee the largely unregulated compounding pharmacy industry — but only after the outbreak resulted in the deaths of over 30 Americans, and the FDA director Margaret Hamburg begged a Senate health committee to give the agency more oversight.

Mitt Romney made his desire to defund Planned Parenthood a central part of his pro-life credentials during his failed presidential campaign — but even though Romney didn’t ascend to the White House, attacks on Planned Parenthood aren’t fading away anytime soon. State level efforts to defund the women’s health organization are moving forward in Texas and Oklahoma, and members of the 133th Congress are so eager to introduce national legislation to block federal funds to Planned Parenthood that two Tennessee congresswomen both introduced identical versions of the same bill this week.

As the Huffington Post notes, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Diane Black (R-TN) both hope to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding for their family planning and preventative health services, and rushed to introduce a bill to do so during the first few days of the legislative session. But perhaps they were a bit too eager, since both bills are actually exactly the same proposal:

Tennessee Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R) and Diane Black (R) separately reintroduced a bill during the first two days of the 2013 legislative session that would prohibit Title X family planning grants from being awarded to any organization that performs abortions. The bill, first introduced by former Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) in the 112th Congress, primarily targets Planned Parenthood, which receives about $340 million a year in Title X funds for non-abortion health and family planning services. Both bills amend Pence’s original bill to include exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. [...]

The day after Blackburn circulated her bill, Black introduced the same bill. One of Black’s staffers pointed out to HuffPost that her bill has the same number as Pence’s original bill and said that Pence, the governor-elect of Indiana, had specifically given Black his blessing to carry it on. Black’s bill has 38 cosponsors and endorsements from all the same organizations that Blackburn’s has.

The two legislators are unconcerned about their overlapping legislative agendas; they may simply sign on to co-sponsor each other’s bills. “The fact that there are multiple members interested in this issue proves that Planned Parenthood is not going to be let off the hook. We welcome the attention of all members to the subject,” Blackburn told the Huffington Post. “It helps build momentum.”

The Republican congresswomen believe their double push to block federal grant money from Planned Parenthood clinics is necessary in spite of the Hyde Amendment, a 1976 federal law that already prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding abortion services. The major fuel to anti-abortion advocates’ fire is a recent report noting Planned Parenthood’s activities during its last fiscal year, when the organization received $542 million in taxpayer funding and performed about 334,000 abortions. Anti-choice lawmakers like Blackburn argue that even though those taxpayer dollars don’t directly fund abortion procedures, they still indirectly allow the women’s health group to continue performing abortions because they don’t have to worry about fully funding their other programmatic areas.

Ironically, continued Republican crusades against Planned Parenthood may actually be helping perpetuate the organization’s funding cycle. A post-election poll confirmed that women’s issues, including ensuring secure funding for Planned Parenthood, were a decisive factor in November’s election. Sixty four percent of all voters said they heard something about Romney’s intent to defund Planned Parenthood, and 62 percent disagreed with that position — potentially spurring voters to make increased donations to the organization during the election cycle to lend their support.