{"id":215,"date":"2026-05-29T17:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=215"},"modified":"2026-05-29T17:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:44:08","slug":"a-grassroots-group-in-tucson-is-3d-printing-tourniquets-to-send-to-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"A Grassroots Group in Tucson Is 3D-Printing Tourniquets to Send to Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In late April, the humanitarian aid organization Anera received a peculiar donation of 250 3D-printed tourniquets. Even more unusual was the fact they were manufactured by a small non-hierarchical collective using an open-source design on the other end of the world, in Tucson, Arizona.<\/p>\n

The shipment arrived in Lebanon after more than 100 Israeli strikes wounded at least 1,000 people in less than 10 minutes on April 8. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Lebanon\u2019s hospitals may run out of life-saving supplies within days. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe day after [these strikes], the hospitals and ministry launched a call for support because items were out of stock already,\u201d Rima Kamal, a Lebanon-based medical donations program coordinator working for Anera, told Truthout<\/em>. \u201cItems that were supposed to last for one or two months were directly depleted because the hospitals weren\u2019t expecting to support that many patients.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since March 2, Israel has killed more than 3,224 people in Lebanon, injured more than 10,000, and displaced more than 1.2 million people. Its military has hunted down and killed journalists, attacked health care centers, destroyed bridges, and demolished entire neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Anera is one of the organizations struggling to keep Lebanon\u2019s medical system functioning amid unrelenting Israeli attacks, working closely with hospitals, first responders, and other NGOs to source and distribute urgently needed medical supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met with all the hospital directors, and we learned there is a high need for IV anesthesia, IV painkillers, IV antibiotics,\u201d she said. Anera is currently accepting donations to procure these items. \u201cWe coordinate closely with the ministry and other NGOs to avoid duplication and ensure that we are addressing help whenever it\u2019s most needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shipment of 3D-printed tourniquets is not more important or critical than other forms of aid at present. Kamal said the shipment that arrived in late April was most valuable because \u2014 in addition to the tourniquets \u2014 it contained tens of thousands of other critically needed supplies, including wheelchairs, transport chairs, menstrual hygiene kits, and adult diapers. The effort is notable, though, as grassroots groups are attempting to move toward decentralized medical manufacturing that is less dependent on traditional corporate production chains. <\/p>\n

Manufacturing Mutual Aid <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The tourniquet manufacturing pipeline hinged on an open-source design published to GitHub in February 2017 by Glia, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource \u200bcommunities to build sustainable, locally-driven healthcare projects.\u200b Glia released the design in response to an acute shortage of medical supplies in Gaza due to Israel\u2019s longstanding illegal blockade of food, fuel, and medicine. It has since allowed for about 6,000 tourniquets to be manufactured locally in Gaza, and another 1,000 were sent to Ukraine. <\/p>\n

Several years later, Alex Barton, a member of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, caught wind of Glia\u2019s design through an interview with co-founder Dr. Tarek Loubani on the podcast It Could Happen Here<\/em>. After more than a decade as a quality engineer in the medical device industry, Barton became interested in open-source medical device manufacturing during the COVID pandemic, but was ultimately discouraged by some of the community\u2019s lack of emphasis on quality. <\/p>\n

Glia\u2019s values around accessibility, safety, and quality aligned with Barton\u2019s own. Shortly after listening to the episode, he began experimenting with manufacturing the design alongside his partner. They formed a collective called Distributed Medical Device Manufacturing (DMDM), with the stated goal of exploring manufacturing regulatory compliant aid supplies outside of the existing profit driven, hierarchical medical device industry. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy political camp is that I don\u2019t want people bleeding out because they don\u2019t have access to equipment that we have the luxury of having access to,\u201d Barton told Truthout<\/em>. \u201cMy main motivation is to make sure that anybody that needs these can get them. We\u2019re not there yet, but we\u2019re trying to get there, and there\u2019s a wonderful group of people around the world trying to make sure that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In 2023, Alex recruited a few friends he met at the Blacklidge Community Collective (BCC), a mutual aid and political education hub in Tucson, to join the collective. A private grant and more than $10,000 in crowdfunding allowed DMDM to apply to have the BCC designated as a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved manufacturing facility. <\/p>\n

DMDM\u2019s testing process is more extensive than what the FDA requires, and more rigorous than those produced cheaply by large corporations. Because of a loophole called the 510(k) process, many medical devices do not have to undergo pre-market clinical testing prior to use so long as they can prove they are \u201csubstantially similar\u201d to what\u2019s already on the market. The FDA typically does not conduct independent tests of medical devices. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe two-dollar tourniquets you get on Amazon are totally unsafe,\u201d said Mike Jacobs, a member of DMDM. \u201cThey\u2019re unchecked, they are non-FDA registered. You don\u2019t know what the quality process is like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collective worked with academics to devise robust quality assurance practices, and relies on an open-source tourniquet tester to pressure test each batch to ensure the devices can save lives when needed. <\/p>\n

After registering with the FDA, DMDM raised funds to manufacture the 250 tourniquets that landed in Lebanon recently. A second ongoing fundraiser and weekly work parties with trained volunteers will allow them to ship another 200 tourniquets to Lebanon soon. They\u2019ve also sent some to Sudan, and to Los Angeles and Minneapolis during the height of ICE\u2019s invasion. <\/p>\n

Last November, an additional $14,000 was raised for the effort in a single day by the Palestine Hurra Collective (PHC), a Nashville-based collective fighting for Palestinian liberation. Palestinian American organizer Aminah Alhassan said just four or five people came together over the course of about two months to plan the fundraiser \u2014 a day full of music, Palestinian food, vendors, films, and a panel. About 13 people ran the event. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is power in community,\u201d Alhassan told Truthout<\/em>. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take a lot to make a huge difference. A small group of people were able to achieve this huge thing. It was so special and so powerful.\u201d <\/p>\n

A portion of the funds were then sent to Distribute Aid, a grassroots organization of logistics experts that serve as the web connecting the various nodes in the aid pipeline together. Distribute Aid coordinated with Afya, a nonprofit that rescues unused medical supplies for under-resourced health systems and acts as a staging point for donors prior to shipment, and with the nonprofit Airlink which organizes shipments directly with airlines. <\/p>\n

The whole pipeline \u2014 from Glia, to DMDM, PHC, Afeya, Airlink, and finally Anera \u2014 offers an example of what decentralized, community-controlled medical infrastructure can look like in practice. \u201cWe need to take control of the ability to create the things that we need, especially the most important things \u2014 things that save our lives, things that we need in crises,\u201d DMDM member Ryan Fattica told Truthout<\/em>. \u201cDoing so together with our community is part of remaking the world and remaking our lives the way we want to live them, and living less alienated lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would scaling up the autonomous aid pipeline look like in practice? \u201cThe immediate step would be that there\u2019s a distributed network of manufacturers of tourniquets and other necessary medical devices across the country,\u201d Fattica envisioned. \u201cWe would have strategically placed distribution hubs in major cities, that are able to quickly and nimbly get aid all over the country to anywhere it\u2019s needed.\u201d At an even bigger level, communities would be able to grow all <\/em>the things they need and share them directly with each other without relying on a profit motive.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s members hope their modest contribution will generalize into something along these lines. They\u2019re actively seeking collaborators, and said the lessons they\u2019ve learned will pave an easier path forward for others who want to pitch in. \u201cThe main advice I\u2019d give [for those who want to help] is to reach out to us,\u201d said Fattica. Jacobs added that other groups could be suppliers to DMDM without needing to become an FDA-registered facility. \u201cWe are excited to train people in the process so that they can contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A small non-hierarchical collective in Arizona is using an open-source design to create life-saving tourniquets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nA Grassroots Group in Tucson Is 3D-Printing Tourniquets to Send to Lebanon - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=215\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Grassroots Group in Tucson Is 3D-Printing Tourniquets to Send to Lebanon - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A small non-hierarchical collective in Arizona is using an open-source design to create life-saving tourniquets.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=215\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-29T17:44:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"A Grassroots Group in Tucson Is 3D-Printing Tourniquets to Send to Lebanon\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-29T17:44:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215\"},\"wordCount\":1408,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/cf7e36525d79682bf2b78f86c3ae6d6e.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=215\",\"name\":\"A Grassroots Group in Tucson Is 3D-Printing Tourniquets to Send to Lebanon - 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