Last July former Vice President Dick Cheney had a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) put into his chest to assist his failing heart. Cheney is now resuming his public life in politics. News reports note that he is more than willing to talk about his new life-saving implant. It is not so clear that he fully understands what he needs to say about it. There is a lot to talk about regarding LVADs. As Cheney resumes his active role in GOP politics, is he aware that the only reason he is alive is as a result of taxpayer-supported government research at the National Institutes of Health? He might want to mention that the private sector did not do the basic research that led to the invention of the LVAD—public money played the crucial role.
The left ventricular assist devices are used when a heart is no longer capable of pumping blood on its own and cannot recover. Those who receive them will die with them. Which leads to another topic Cheney should be talking about—how he will die.
LVADs are the direct legacy of the program to build a total artificial heart that was instituted at NIH more than 50 years ago. While a total artificial heart proved difficult to create, partial artificial hearts were designed and actively used in government-financed research trials by the late 1990s. While the newly empowered GOP is saber-rattling about huge cuts in government spending, without federal funding for NIH, Cheney would be very unlikely to be alive to join that chorus.
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