40,000 People Exposed to HIV and Hepititus C at a Medical Clinic

I saw this link posted by a friend of mine in Nevada... 40,000 people who went to a medical center have been potentially exposed to HIV, Hepititus C, and all the other nasty bugs that can be spread through blood.

Evidently, reusing vials and syringes was a common practice at this clinic. Additionally, the clinic did not thoroughly clean equipment used for procedures like colonoscopies and upper GI tests.

I guess that the business could be subject to sanctions or lose its Medicare contract.

I think that perhaps stronger penalties should be applied in this case. The medical community has known about AIDS for more than 20 years now. Everybody knows that reusing syringes can spread the AIDS virus, and that there is no cure. Most people (in medicine at least, I would assume) know about Hepatitus C, and that it can lead to liver failure and death. This is not rocket science.

Personally, I think that if any of these patients ends up getting AIDS, Hepatitus C, or anything else as a result of this syringe policy, and dies, that the person responsible for giving them this disease and killing them should be charged criminally for involuntary manslaughter.

Reusing syringes in this day and age is just asking for people to die. 30 years ago... fine. People didn't know that it could kill. This is 2008. Almost everybody over the age of 10 can tell you that it is a dangerous practice (sure, they might not be able to find the United States on a map, but they do get sex education).

I only know somebody who knows somebody that may be affected by this, but this really angers me. I just don't get how people can be so careless and neglectful when it comes to something that can kill people, all in the name of saving a buck.

Drug Makers Take Infant Cold Medications Off The Shelves

My son has had a cold for more than a week now. A couple nights ago, he woke up at 2 AM hacking and unable to sleep. We didn't have any infant decongestant in the house, so my husband ran to Walgreen's to get him some medicine so he could get back to sleep.

Well, I'm glad that my son was sick earlier than this week than today, because who knows what infant medicine is left on the shelf? I found an AP article on Excite saying that drug companies had pulled many infant medications off the shelves. Evidently, some parents are overdosing their children.

While I don't run to the medicine cabinet every time my little boy has a runny nose, there are times when it's very nice to have infant medicine. Like when it's 2 AM and your baby can't sleep. By taking the infant medications off the shelves, parents are left with fewer options to deal with their children.

With the wonderful availability of the internet, it's very easy to look up a dosing chart for infant's medications. I like to use the one here. Although, since they are taking the medicines off the shelves, they might end up taking the dosing chart off the internet as well.

Which leads us to the bigger question: with infant medications no longer available, what will parents do when their child is sick in the middle of the night and can't sleep? My guess is that many of them will be giving their infants children's medicines. Which doesn't really fix what the drug makers are trying to solve in the first place, does it?