Breast Pump Ventilator

The Issue at Hand

The respiratory impacts of the COVID-19 virus have made ventilators one of the most needed medical devices in hospitals. As of April 5th, the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that the city would run out of ventilators in a matter of days. Luckily, just over 3 weeks after his warning, New York has been able to keep up with demand and is now giving away extra ventilators to other areas in need.

Nonetheless, this issue caught the attention of some engineers who wanted to make a difference. Located in Maryland, Brandi Gerstner, Grant Gerstner, Alex Scott, and Rachel LaBatt modified breast pumps to create temporary ventilators and free up higher-quality ones for those who need them the most.

The Solution

To create temporary ventilators, the team needed to produce medical-grade equipment at a low cost. Following the FDA’s approval for the use of positive-pressure emergency medical equipment, Gerstner had an idea: why not try a breast pump?

The closed-loop compressor combined with a medically-based production process made the breast pump an ideal choice for a ventilator. One issue, however, was that breast pumps sucked instead of pumped. To remedy this, Gerstner broke into one of her old breast pumps and found a way to easily reverse its air-flow. To further increase its accuracy, the team soldered some pins into the pump’s electrical board and used an Arduino to control its operation.

The prototype costs about $250 to produce, which is incredibly low when compared to the $25,000 cost of a medical ventilator. While the team is well-aware their pump adaptation will not provide the same services as a high-end medical ventilator, they seek to ‘fill the gap’ and make the higher-quality ventilators more available to those who need them.

The Implementation

To ensure user safety, the ‘breath pump‘ team is working to improve and test their pump before releasing the designs. They are currently working with a pulmonologist to create a better design more suited for medical use. For FDA approval, the device will also need to be tested in a biomedical simulation lab.

Once their design gains FDA approval, the team will release their modifications in an open-source format. Unconcerned about monetary gain, they simply want to “make a difference.” While the ventilator shortage has become less of an issue, engineers like Gerstner and her team will make a large impact in the fight against COVID-19.

Fifty years ago in April 1970, over 20 million Americans across the country mobilized to protest environmental degradation in what became known as the first Earth Day. After a decade of witnessing atrocious environmental spectacles like the fire on the Cuyahoga River and the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbra, people took to the street en masse to demand governmental action. The large-scale protests pressured the Nixon administration to create the EPA that year. It also spurred monumental legislation such as an amended Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act, which all passed within five years of the first Earth Day. 

Fifty years later, it’s important to remember that for many people across America, their air is still polluted and their water is not yet drinkable. Environmental legislation has struggled to protect people equally. Communities of color and low-income families across the country largely face the same environmental injustice as fifty years ago. 

 Today, we face the biggest crisis of our time — climate change. While the first Earth Day brought impactful environmental reform, this day has since become a convenient means of inaction for corporations who are actively contributing to the demise of the planet. By using Earth Day to encourage people to recycle more, Coca Cola can blissfully look past the fact that it’s the largest plastic polluter in the world. 

This Earth Day was meant to be a break in that system, reigniting the use of nation-wide direct action and protests to demand radical change that would address the climate crisis head-on — this time without leaving behind those who have been most impacted by its effects. Though the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have altered this plan, the intentions of millions of people across the country and the fear of the climate crisis are the same. And just because we are all stuck at home and unable to meet each other on the streets, does not mean that our voices will go unheard. 

There are still a lot of ways you can get involved. 

Earth Day Live is a three-day online event focusing on the three major topics: strike, divest, and vote for our future. RSVP to the live stream to see speakers like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Vice President Al Gore, as well as hundreds of local live streams from across the country.

If you’re looking to do more, compiled below are various petitions that you can add your name to and tools for contacting your representatives to demand environmental action. If you’re able, spend some time seeing how you can make a change from home. Though this Earth Day certainly isn’t all we had hoped it to be, the climate crisis has not stopped and neither has our need to see and create change. 

To view the list, follow this link: Create Change from Home

Living in DC, you’ve probably noticed that plastic straws have been done away with — for the most part — as have many plastic containers and plastic bags. These plastics are disappearing from day-to-day DC life as a result of legislation banning and taxing such items. In 2009, DC became the first local government to tax plastic bags with the Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act. It required all District “businesses that sell food or alcohol to charge a five-cent fee for each disposable paper or plastic bag distributed with any purchase.”

At first glance, such laws can seem like a universal win for the planet, and while it is crucial that people begin cutting plastic out of their lives in order to mitigate plastic pollution and the climate-change inducing gasses created from producing plastic, it is also necessary that lawmakers take into account the people who will be negatively impacted by plastic bans. 

For most of its history, environmentalism has left out the communities most impacted by pollution and environmental degradation, instead favoring the desires of those who have the power and money to advocate for the changes they want to see in the environment. In part, that’s why plastic straws became a national crisis rather than a lack of drinkable water in cities across America. If lead-contaminated water impacted gated, largely white communities rather than low-income communities of color, we would probably be witnessing a different story. 

You may have heard of the plastic straw ban being labeled “ableist.” First, to define this term for those who may not be familiar with it, ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities or who are perceived to have disabilities. To someone who is able-bodied, the lack of a plastic straw might–at worst–be an annoying inconvenience. But for folks with disabilities, a flexible straw that does not conduct heat or become too cold might be imperative for drinking a beverage, which is why outright bans without exceptions can be thoughtless and dangerous. Sure, you can expect people to carry around a reusable straw at all times, but do you remember your straw wherever you go? Or your reusable bag or water bottle? Of course not! We’re all human and mistakes are part of our gig, but forgetting an item should not cost someone their health. 

And what about plastic bag bans? Well, they have their own set of problems. Bans and bag-taxes use the same tactic of incentivizing consumers to change their behavior. A ten or five-cent tax on each bag may seem like a drop in the bucket, but it is important to consider the “burden this bill places on low-income residents, particularly those who use food assistance to purchase groceries.” For those who use public transport to get to the grocery store, remembering to carry around reusable bags can be more burdensome than simply leaving a couple in your car. Additionally, people who live in food-deserts that have to walk considerable distances to get to the grocery store may find it harder to carry home a week’s worth of groceries in paper rather than plastic bags. 

There are ways to make plastic bans more inclusionary, and many governments around the country and world have been intentional in mitigating negative impacts. For plastic straw bans, writing waivers/exemptions that allow “restaurants to give disposable, flexible plastic straws to customers who need them for physical or medical reasons” is a crucial part of making the bans equitable. However, even such waivers can be ignored by restaurants, which is why there should also be a corrective system of reporting flaws in the procedures of restaurants or companies. When New Zealand was writing the legislation for its plastic bag ban, they were warned that “the plastic bag ban could hit the poorest the hardest” by the Ministry for the Environment. To mitigate this problem, the ministry recommended giving people with Gold and Community services cards–the equivalent to the SNAP Food Benefits program in America–reusable bags for free. 

A National Geographic blog points out that using the plights that those in a low socioeconomic status face as a reason for why plastic bag bans should not go into effect are a common tool of plastic industry lobbyists. The author also argues that such statements overlook the more pressing issues that the poor face. An individual in financial hardship will be drastically more affected by inadequate health care rather than paying a nickel for using a plastic bag. 

Nevertheless, it’s imperative that governments consult with the communities who could be negatively impacted by plastic bans–whether that’s people with disabilities, or those of a lower socioeconomic status–and to consider their voices in the process of legislation. 

And what about DC’s plastic bag ban? Is it equitable? Well, there has been little backlash against the ban by DC’s low-income residents (which could be due to the money-power dynamics of politics) but there is more DC could be doing. All of the money raised from the tax goes into various clean-up and restoration projects for the Anacostia River. Considering the health of people as well as the environment, DC could also funnel some of this money into projects that ensure every resident has drinkable tap water. 

An article written by Madeleine Somerville for The Guardian sums up the problem of the inequity found in plastic bans well: “An eco-friendly life shouldn’t be a luxury afforded only to those with lots of time, lots of money, or both. It’s also naive to think that environmental problems such as pollution, water shortages and global warming will affect us equally, and expecting equal participation in the form of a one-size-fits-all prescription for the perfect green life is just as ignorant.” 

Environmentalists–and the laws they help create– advocating that everyone change their life-style need to acknowledge the fact that not everyone has the means to do so. Everyone should do what’s right for the environment any time they have the choice to–with room for forgiveness because it’s impossible to be perfect. For lawmakers, this means acknowledging and addressing “the limitations and systemic roadblocks in the way of making eco-friendly change” which many people face.