Posted on 03/06/2008 7:37:21 AM PST by ricks_place
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nearly 40,000 people learned this week that a trip to the doctor may have made them sick. In a type of scandal more often associated with Third World countries, a Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years. The shoddy practices may have led to an outbreak of the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus and exposed patients to HIV, too. The discovery led to the biggest public health notification operation in U.S. history, brought demands for investigations and caused scores of lawyers to seek out patients at risk for infections.
Thousands of patients are being urged to be tested for the viruses. Six acute cases of hepatitis C have been confirmed. The surgical center and five affiliated clinics have been closed.
"I find it baffling, frankly, that in this day and age anyone would think it was safe to reuse a syringe," said Michael Bell, associate director for infection control at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One of the infected patients is retired airplane mechanic Michael Washington, 67, who was the first to report his infection. On the advice of his doctor, he received a routine colon exam in July at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.
In September, he started to get sick. He was losing weight fast. His urine turned dark. His stomach hurt. By January, it was clear what had happened.
He describes his virus as a "creeping death sentence" and worries that others will hear his story and think twice before getting preventive care they need.
In letters that began arriving this week, patients who received injected anesthesia at the endoscopy center from March 2004 to mid- January were urged to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
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OpenSecrets' Donor Lookup comprises contribution data available electronically from the Federal Election Commission on Monday, March 03, 2008. Because campaigns and other political committees typically disclose their contributions on a quarterly or monthly schedule, it can take several months for a contribution to be recorded in this database.
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Wow.
Amazing isn’t it?
Politics is the least of the concern here. This is borderline evil...
This could bankrupt an insurance company............
Not only borderline evil-—but all the way, criminal!
The nurses knew that re-using syringes was criminal endangerment, but cared more about keeping their jobs. Only if they know they personally risk jail, will future nurses refuse similar orders
Kusum Desai
Primary Specialty: Internist
University: Seth G S Med Coll, Univ Of Bombay, Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Training: Nassau Co Med Ctr, Pulmonary Diseases; Cath M C Bklyn-Queens Inc, Pulmonary Diseases; Cath M C Bklyn-Queens Inc, Internal Medicine
Gives meaning to the comment that this is a third world practice.
Interesting data for sure. Thanks. . .
Each of these nurses will have his/her license revoked. They should have reported this years ago. My wife is an RN here in Nevada and is constantly on guard for any practices which may endanger her license. These nurses knew better. It is not like they couldn’t have gotten jobs somewhere else. Nurses are in demand right now.
In fact, Desai is a much more frequent contributor to Dems than to the GOP.
Just heard Paul Harvey-subsitute, Gil Gross, gloss over what kind of "political contributor" Desai is. So decided to look for myself on www.opensecrets.org (like Rick's Place did an hour earlier)...
Dipak Desai is a MUCH bigger contributor to Democrats --Ted Kennedy, AlGore, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and Bob "the Torch" Torricelli (!) among others.
Yes, there are contributions there to Nevada's Republican senator, John Ensign, too.
But that was probably intended by Desai as "CYA insurance" for doing business in Nevada. Not an indication of his political sympathies.
I’m waiting to find out that a bunch of these “nurses” were illegal immigrants with fake credentials. A doc who would be willing to re-use needles is likely to also be a doc who would not look too closely at their credentials as long as they worked cheap and kept their mouths shut
Bump.
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