The New York Times has a disturbing article on how negligence in the use of radiology machines has led to fatal radiation overdoses. It is astonishing since most people assume that these machines are calibrated to avoid such operator error.
The article below features the tragic case of Scott Jerome-Parks who died in 2007 at the age of 43. He was being treated for tongue cancer at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.
Another patient at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, was given 300 percent more radiation than recommended in each of 27 days of radiation therapy. Alexandra Jn-Charles, 32, was given the treatment with a linear accelerator missing a filter that ultimately burned a hole in her chest, leaving a gaping wound. She also died.
What is particularly alarming is that New York hospitals are protected from being identified in many such cases due to long-standing laws passed at the insistence of the medical lobby.
For the full story, click here.
I guess I have a warped sense of humor but those responses are theatre of the absurd and I find them funny. I imagine Bdaman does it for just that reason.
Byron,
you give him too much credit.
I for one think Bdamans insertion of GW comments in almost every thread is funny. I look at it as the running joke for the Turley blog.
Rats in Jakarta eating babies.
Bdaman-“they are cold and hungry”
I guess I have a warped sense of humor but those responses are theatre of the absurd and I find them funny. I imagine Bdaman does it for just that reason.
“I know you are trying mightily to rehabilitae your reputation here, but if so, try to learn the distinction between propagandizing and commenting.”
I agree. In professional football they instituted a penalty for taunting. While the introduction of global warming is not a personal attack, and is therefore not a 15 yard penalty, it is a 5 yard penalty.
“And that can now be said about the Climate Change Alarmist”
Bdaman,
Are you so drowned in your own propaganda that you can’t help but add gratuitous comments that are off point to everything you write? Your comment above would be like me answering a post in a global warming thread by throwing in: George Bush is responsible for mass murder and treason to his country. While that may be true, there is no nexus, or need for it in the global warming context. I know you are trying mightily to rehabilitae your reputation here, but if so, try to learn the distinction between propagandizing and commenting. People might just begin to take you a little more seriously.
if only the medical establishment would put aside their
ego-driven needs, that mix so seamlessly the refusal to change belief in the face of new evidence.
And that can now be said about the Climate Change Alarmist
Well said Mr. Spindell
Mike S:
well said and very good advice.
As someone with a long adverse medical history I’ve discovered that the patient needs to constantly be on guard against errors in treatment. These errors are not usually caused because medical workers don’t care about doing the best possible for each patient, but because the entire medical bureaucracy is poorly constructed to individualize patients. We see today for instance the over specialization of Physicians, which prevents true holistic treatment. I had to fire a cardiologist at one point, who wouldn’t give my surgeon a permission to remove my gall bladder. What became clear was that the “heart” man was unfamiliar with the lethal implications of a diseased gall bladder. When he finally called to give me agreement he used the exacy phrasing used on Dr. Koop’s website to describe a diseased gall bladder and its dire implications. I believe this was an intelligent man and probably a good man in his field. He was simply too focused on his one area of patient treatment.
The entire system has to be changed conceptually from Med School on, so that patients in need can be treated with a perspective on the whole person, rather than just the initial presenting problem. In this age of computers good diagnosis is greatly aided, if only the medical establishment would put aside their
ego-driven needs, that mix so seamlessly the refusal to change belief in the face of new evidence.
Radiation and Chemotherapy both focus on the same thing. That is, mutated cells that reproduce at a faster rate than the normal healthy cells. Chemo-therapy is more of a whole-body treatment that goes after those cells. That’s why people receiving chemo may loose their hair. Hair cells are most like the cancer cells in the rate at which they reproduce.
Radiation treatment can be much better focused, but it still works on the same principle.
One of the worst things about radiation poisoning is that it also limits a sick persons ability to fight off other diseases. The symptoms are much like the flu, but the white blood cells that usually work to combat disease are damaged or killed-off, which results in a greater likelihood of getting sick from other things. And in a hospital environment, there are plenty of other things.
A while back, I heard of some research that had been performed in the area of ultrasonic treatment. The study indicated that different cells have different frequencies that can be used to kill them. I tried to get an oncologist to weigh-in on the study, but haven’t heard anything yet.
I still think radiation treatment is a good way to go. I would prefer it to chemo. I think these linear accelerators can be good, but only if proper safety guidelines are established. I see no reason why a test dose cannot be sent to a dosimetry device after the settings are made, but before the patient exposure begins, to ensure the proper dose will be delivered.
It does not surprise me in the least. What is also interesting is my understanding that Commercial Pilots have exposure to radiation than 100 cancer patients. I read this somewhere and am to lazy to confirm it.