My friend works for a medical device manufacturer helping prepare for FDA inspections and related quality control measures and as I recall, and this was a couple years ago, he said that the FDA is fairly stringent but could be more so, and he wishes they'd fine for higher amounts, because if getting fined for a mistake was a bigger financial hit, companies would be better incentivized to avoid mistakes that the FDA currently catches and has them correct.

If it worked like that, that would be great! However, our regulatory frameworks unfortunately seem to be in rather a rather weakened place right now. The medical industry is rife with corruption in a number of places, as best as I understand the situation. And even if it weren't, measuring safety I think is a very hard thing to begin with. :'/

I suppose the first step would be looking into what the regulations are for this sort of thing, and whether you think they are sufficient.

How do I go about doing that?