Hepatitis C Danger In Your MD’s Office?
Hepatitis C Danger In Your MD’s Office?
Outbreaks Of Dangerous Infection Coming From An Unlikely Place
NEW YORK, Feb. 25, 2008(CBS) During treatment for breast cancer in 2002, Evelyn McKnight was floored to learn that she would have to fight a second serious disease: Hepatitis C, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay reports.
“We were completely confounded,” McKnight said. “We had no idea where I could have gotten that.”
Soon her husband Tom, a family physician in Fremont, Neb., discovered some of his patients had also been infected.
“The only common denominator was that we were all cancer patients,” McKnight said.
And they all were receiving chemotherapy at the same cancer-treatment center.
In the end, 99 people were infected, the largest outbreak of its kind in North American history. The cause: Nurses were discarding used needles, but were reusing the syringes, thereby passing the infection from patient to patient.
“It’s a constant worry about am I going to wake up and be jaundiced?” McKnight said. “Is this the day that cirrhosis is going to show up?”
Since 1999, The Centers for Disease Control has tracked 31 outbreaks including Norman Okla., at a pain treatment clinic. In 2002, 71 were infected there. Other outbreaks include:
He blames these outbreaks on sloppy infection-control practices in out-patient settings, which are not regulated as strictly as hospitals.
“The problem with non-hospital settings, ambulatory settings, is that a lot of times there’s less of a framework to make sure people do things right every time,” Bell said.
Anesthesiologist Rebecca Twersky of Long Island College Hospital demonstrated one way infection can easily be spread with multi-dose vials designed for use on more than one patient.
“What you shouldn’t do is take the same syringe that I just used before go back into that bottle and take out the medication,” Twersky said. “Even if you’ve changed the needle, if you’re still using the same syringe.”
Then you’ve contaminated the bottle.
“Then in comes the next patient, and you know you go thru the whole process not realizing that patient A might have put their microscopic blood particles into the multi-dose vial,” Twersky said.
Evelyn McKnight founded a patient advocacy group and is now lobbying Capitol Hill to mandate better infection control in outpatient settings.
“You should not feel like seeking healthy care is a high-risk behavior,” McKnight said. “Every patient deserves to feel safe when they seek health care.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/25/eveningnews/main3875991.shtml
Hepatitis C Danger In Your MD’s Office?
It was the largest outbreak of its kind in North American history - and it originated in a doctor’s office. Nurses were reusing syringes passed a Hepatitic C infection from patient to patient. It could happen again, Dr. Emily Senay reports. More…
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http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml??source=RSS
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Good Job Evelyn! The Hep C Community THANKS YOU! Evelyn’s site can be accessed at: http://www.largestamericanoutbreak.com/
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Thanks for posting this. As a cancer patient, I’m constantly having blood draws, bone marrow biopsies and other tests.
Web Admin
March 7, 2008
Your welcome. Sadly this one paled in comparison to the story 2 days later in Las Vegas where 44,000 were called back in to be tested for Hep B, Hep C and HIV from an Endoscopy Clinic. We are all at risk all the time. We have to learn about our own diseases and be our own advocates because the medical community is no longer trying to *keep us healthy* as they seem to be more concerned about $$ than patients. So sad!
I do hope that your cancer goes into remission and that you are able to live a long and healthy life.
I had a friend who put her cancer into remission after many years and rounds of chemotherapy only to die a short time later from cirrhosis of the liver due to Hepatitis B that was never found during the ENTIRE TIME that she was on chemo. Amazing to me that not one of her oncologists (or any of her other doctors for that matter) ever thought to do a Hepatitis panel during all those years! Take care.
peachstatepam
March 7, 2008
Doctors seem to shy away from spending extra money on tests that the insurance companies don’t like to pay for, that’s for sure. I had to be tested for everything before I had a stem cell transplant last summer, so I know my status.
Again, thanks for keeping us informed about this important matter.
Web Admin
March 12, 2008