For those not reading the story, which appears to be many, the company that services the implant went bankrupt. The implant was experimental. There exists no one to service it any longer. It will pose a health risk down the road without someone servicing it.

The only thing that forced her to have the implant removed is the fact that it would eventually lead to her untimely death if it remained in with no one to take care of the device.

This story was described more accurately by The New Yorker. No, they did not do anything without her consent.

For three years after her operation, Leggett lived happily with her device. But in 2013 her neurologist gave her some bad news. NeuroVista had run out of funding and ceased operations. Leggett’s neural device would have to come out.

Leggett felt grateful that everyone involved was sympathetic to her plight. They let her keep the implant as long as possible. But the demise of NeuroVista—after spending seventy million dollars to develop the technology and conduct the trial, it struggled to find further investors—made removal inevitable. If the battery ran out, or a lead broke, or the site of implantation became infected, the company would no longer be there to provide support. She remembered a solemn drive to Melbourne for the surgery, and then coming back home without the device. It felt as if she had left a part of herself behind.

These days, when she gets a funny, flip-floppy feeling inside, she takes anti-seizure medication. She’s not always sure. Sometimes she gets her husband to weigh in. He says, “Go with your first instinct,” and usually she takes a pill. She is now seizure-free.

The article also suggests that other patients had problems with the device, which may have contributed to the failure of the clinical trial and recommendation for removal.

Yah. My BS counter is clicking quite a lot with this one.

You can't force someone into surgery against their will. No hospital or doctor would do that. It would be a major crime. The surgeon, anesthesiologist, who knows how many others, would go to prison! That kind of crime.
The company may have coerced her, with threats of lawsuits. But that's very different. And the article completely avoids any mention of exactly how she was forced to go through with it. If that information was included, it would only make the company look worse. I can't think of why it would be left out, given the narrative they're creating here.

There is a lot missing from this story.
I'd bet she took a some kind of settlement that included payment and a form of NDA.

For profit companies and medicine cannot co-exist.

So while governments can bailout big companies that are able to serve their greater interests, medical companies with cases like this and the bionic-eye one slip away without any kind of intervention?

We have multi-million-dollar VC funds for an app and this shit is allowed to happen.

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

One step closer to Repo Men becoming reality.

I'm guessing the patients were required beforehand to sign forms consenting to the device being taken out in the event of ___________ (in this case, the company going under). Because otherwise I don't understand how it'd be legal to force someone to have brain surgery against their will.

But if the company can't continue maintenance and support for the device, why not have her sign new forms exempting them from liability and just let her keep it? Is potential liability not the only limiting factor here? And would this be ethical?

Every implant legal agreement must include a clause allowing the patient to keep the device in the event of company bankruptcy.