Congressional Hearing on Tainted Equipment at V.A.

from: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/us/politics/30brfs-HEARINGONTAI_BRF.html

A Congressional panel is scheduled to question VA officials about mistakes that put patients at risk of possible exposure to H.I.V. and other infectious body fluids at three V.A. hospitals, on June 16 in Washington.

Exposed Veterans testing positive now at 48!

Four [4] more exposed veterans test positive after exposure to contaminated equipment at VA medical facilities, total now at 48.

Results as of May 26, 2009 shows a total of 48 veterans are now showing positive for infection after exposure at VA medical facilities. That adds 4 since last week totals.

Sadly, this may the way this will continue to unfold for months, with a few more veterans testing positive every week.

How long will this trend go on, well one report has stated that positive tests have occurred up to 27 months following exposure following a needle stick.

The break down is as follows:
Alvin C. York Campus in Murfreesboro
HIV - 1
Hepatitis C - 19
Hepatitis B - 6
Bruce W. Carter Medical Center, Miami
HIV - 3
Hepatitis C - 8
Hepatitis B - 3
Charlie Norwood Medical Center, Georgia
HIV - 1
Hepatitis C - 5
Hepatitis B - 2

One small success, but worth SHOUTING about!

One of the main purposes of this Blog has been achieved, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has updated its search function. We placed a large number of court opinions on our companion site [ Veterans Claim Research Court Opinions] because we wanted to make it easier for veterans to do their own claims research, via Google.

The Veterans Court's changes appear to be similar in that the results looks like Google and the "similar" function works well in our very limited trial of the site.

Although this improvement looks good, we will keep our own companion site, just in case. Plus, we have a small listing of FedCir. cases that makes our site more useful.

Exposed veterans total now 44,other facilities report errors

The total number of exposed veterans with positive test results for infection now stands at 44.

The VA has also admitted that in addition to the three so far identified VA medical facilities, that there have been mistakes at other VA facilities involving the same equipment. The Associated Press was told that during nationwide safety review discussions, more than a dozen other facilities said "We are not doing this exactly right."

VA refused to explain what was not being done "exactly right" or to identify these facilities.

See full article here:
VA doc: Other possible equipment errors reported