Dr. Shawn Baker on medicine: what the evidence says · JRE #1050

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

Baker claims the reverse shoulder replacement was developed in France in the 1980s and received FDA approval in the United States in 2004. The French origin is well documented: French surgeon Paul Grammont built a prototype (the 'Trompette') in 1985, performed the first implantations in 1986-1987, and refined the design into the modular Delta III prosthesis in 1991, so 'developed in the 80s' is accurate for the original concept, though the design continued to evolve into the early 1990s. The U.S. regulatory timeline is close but slightly off in most accounts: peer-reviewed sources commonly cite FDA clearance of the reverse shoulder prosthesis in 2003, roughly a year earlier than the 2004 date Baker cites, while other reports place approval in March 2004, reflecting genuine variation in the literature over the exact clearance date. Overall, the claim's general timeline (a French 1980s origin followed by U.S. approval in the early-to-mid 2000s) is well supported, with only minor imprecision on the exact approval year and on treating the design as fixed in the 1980s rather than still evolving through 1991.