Sun, Mar 30, 2008 (2:07 a.m.)

The headline over a USA Today story that ran Wednesday was sickeningly familiar: It said, “Infection caused by improperly reused syringes.”

The story was accompanied by a photo of a Nebraska woman and a caption describing her “huge sense of betrayal.”

She had been infected in 2001 with hepatitis C at a clinic in Fremont, Neb., where she had gone for chemotherapy after learning she had breast cancer.

Ninety-eight other clients of this clinic had also been infected with hepatitis C, a life-threatening liver disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA Today reported that the clinic had been reusing syringes and spreading infections.

A month ago newspapers in Nevada were breaking news about a hepatitis C cluster that had been traced back to a Las Vegas clinic — the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada — where medical staff routinely violated standard safety protocol by reusing syringes during anesthesia injections.

Six hepatitis C cases here have so far been traced back to the Endoscopy Center and another case has been traced to an affiliated clinic.

The outbreaks have created a statewide crisis. Health officials have sent letters to 40,000 former patients of the Endoscopy Center recommending that their blood be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Inspections were ordered of all outpatient clinics in the state.

The USA Today story drives home the point that Nevada is not the only state where reuse of syringes has occurred in medical clinics. The paper was careful to say that the “vast majority of medical professionals practice safely and cleanly.” Nevertheless the CDC, the newspaper reported, said that 31 outbreaks of viral hepatitis associated with unsafe medical practices, including those in Fremont and Las Vegas, have occurred since 1999.

The Nebraska woman, Evelyn McKnight, has created a Web site, www.honoreform.org, that is serving as a clearinghouse for victims such as herself, and for anyone wishing to help prevent medical errors that spread blood-borne diseases. We hope her initiative leads to stronger national and state regulations governing clinics.