Brav

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080306/...titis_exposure

:curse: :curse:

LAS VEGAS - 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.

Rest of story on the link

Ozzidoc

It is baffling. It was the increased incidence of Hep C that alerted people to the dodginess. I believe that the HIV reference is scaremongering.

Hiro11

Shoddy reporting there, they were not reusing syringes, they were reusing vials. I heard an interview with the doctor in charge of tracking down everyone who was potentially exposed and he specifically and repeated noted so. Might be a semantic argument, but it's not as if they were jabbing fourteen people with the same needle.

Bluegrass Lass

Since different needles were going into the same vial of medicine, IMO it's just like reusing needles. The article clearly states:

"Health inspectors say they observed clinic staff using the same syringe twice to extract anesthesia from a single vial, which was then inappropriately used to treat more than one patient. The practice allows contaminated blood in a used syringe to taint the vial and infect the next patient."

Unless someone else in the medical profession says otherwise, it appears this practice still has the same capacity to infect the next patient with whatever the previous patient could have had, whether or not the actual needle was reused.

There is absolutely no excuse for this. I hope that criminal charges are laid against the owners and doctors of this clinic, not just civil.

meauxna

Well, people do go to Las Vegas to gamble.

augigi

I don't really understand that - there are tons of multiple-use medication vials that are used in hospitals. As long as you're drawing it up with a clean needle, I don't get the issue.

Thydney

I think it's the clean needle that was the problem

lapin_windstar

Yeah, that seems like it - they were double-dipping some of the needles if they had to jab the same patient twice.

frrussre

I like it.
heads you get it tails, ya don't.
reg

tony126

Attorney's paradise. Needless to say they will get the biggest payout.