Dodd-Frank Undermines the Fight Against Covid

The ‘conflict minerals’ provision blocks resources vital for everything from ventilators to vaccines.

By John Berlau and Seth Carter. Mr. Berlau is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of the book “George Washington, Entrepreneur.” Mr. Carter is a research associate at CEI. Excerpt:

"First, the effects of the conflict-minerals mandate proved to be devastating for those it aimed to help. As the Journal reported, manufacturers spent about $709 million and more than six million man-hours attempting to trace their supply chains for conflict minerals in 2014. And 90% of those companies still couldn’t confirm their products were conflict-free. Many decided to avoid the Congo region altogether and source materials from other countries and continents.

When mining dropped off due to Dodd-Frank’s effects, Congolese villages were hit by reductions in education, health care and food supply. In 2014, 70 activists, academics and government officials signed a letter blasting initiatives like the Dodd-Frank provision for “contributing to, rather than alleviating, the very conflicts they set out to address.”

Second, these minerals are also used in medical devices and equipment to dispense drugs and vaccines. AdvaMed, which represents U.S. medical device makers, stated in a 2011 comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission that “it is unavoidable that conflict minerals will be used” in medical devices, and that “as there are currently no substitutes for these minerals, the continued sourcing of these minerals is necessary to ensure the safety and efficacy of medical devices.”

An AdvaMed spokesman says the views expressed in that letter have not changed. Overwhelming evidence confirms that the minerals designated by Dodd-Frank still are essential to medical equipment and devices—including those needed to fight Covid-19.

Ventilators often rely on energy-storage capacitors made from tantalum. “The ability of tantalum capacitors to answer requirements for reliability, robustness and high energy density make them critically important for advanced medical applications such as lung ventilators and life support monitoring equipment,” wroteTomas Zednicek, engineer and president of the European Passive Components Institute, in the newsletter and electronics journal TIC Bulletin."