Large-scale hepatitis alert has no precedent

Friday, Feb. 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The campaign to notify 40,000 patients of a Las Vegas endoscopy and colonoscopy clinic that they might have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV is believed to be unprecedented in U.S. history, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, six people have been diagnosed with hepatitis C after undergoing procedures at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.

Previously, the largest campaign to notify patients of possible exposure to hepatitis had been in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2001. Health officials there had tried to notify more than 2,000 patients who had gastrointestinal exams at a medical clinic after eight patients tested positive for hepatitis C.

Seven of the infected patients had been hospitalized, alerting authorities to the outbreak. The source of the infection was never pinpointed.

Since 1999 the CDC has tracked 31 outbreaks of hepatitis C.

The largest outbreak of hepatitis C in North America — affecting 99 patients — was confirmed in 2002 in connection with an eastern Nebraska cancer clinic. Patients were infected from March 2000 through December 2001. In all cases a nurse, in removing blood from intravenous tubes, used the same syringe on more than one patient.

The most recent hepatitis C outbreak came to light in June when New York City anesthesiologist Dr. Harvey Finkelstein had to notify 600 patients on whom he performed outpatient procedures in August 2006 that they might have been infected. Three of his patients were confirmed to have the virus.

In Baltimore, Md., a 79-year-old retired ironworker developed a hepatitis C infection and died in 2004 after being injected with what might have been a tainted vial of technetium-99m, a radioactive liquid designed to allow doctors to trace blood vessels. A dozen other patients were infected in the same episode, apparently from the same syringe used on the man.

Another outbreak of hepatitis C occurred in a retirement home from blood-sugar testing in 2003 and 2004, when 71 patients were infected.

Hepatitis C, a virus that attacks the liver, typically is transmitted through infected blood or semen. The disease kills as many as 10,000 people a year in the United States, according to the CDC. The majority of hepatitis C cases are the result of illicit drug use.

Mary Manning can be reached at 259-4065 or at manning@lasvegassun.com.

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

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By MyersandGomel

March 1, 2008

6:19 p.m.

Suggest removal

Not long ago an organization named "Keep Our Doctors in Nevada" pressured the Nevada Legislature into an emergency session and persuaded the Nevada citizens to vote for medical malpractice protection, all in the name of a phony "medical malpractice crisis." Dr. Dipak Desai and the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada were behind the Keep Our Doctors in Nevada group, shelling out at least $25,000 to buy protection from injured patients. As a result, medical providers, INCLUDING DR. DESAI AND HIS CLINIC, are protected by caps on damage awards. Does anyone now think $350,000 is adequate compensation for the pain and suffering that will be endured by any patient of Dr. Desai who contracts HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, or Hepatitis C?

Like many lawyers who represent injured medical patients, our law firm, Myers & Gomel, fought against the caps, and I can tell you this is precisely the type of situation we were concerned about when the doctors and their insurance companies used the "Keep Our Doctors in Nevada" fear campaign to achieve their selfish goal of protective caps. The truth is we shouldn't keep doctors like Dr. Desai in Nevada, and doctors like Dr. Desai don't deserve protective caps so they can practice sub-standard medicine with no fear of a jury's verdict.

This is a real "medical malpractice crisis," and it will not be the last one unless and until doctors like Dr. Desai can be held accountable in full for the pain and suffering caused by such blatant and irresponsible malpractice. Nevada voters should demand that the doctors' special shield laws be repealed and that they be treated like the rest of us.