UNOS, the independent medical network responsible for procuring and distributing human organs for transplants in this country, needs big changes because it is failing desperate patients, making screening errors, among other missteps, that have killed dozens of them and caused hundreds to develop procedure-related diseases. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee reviewed hundreds of thousands of….
Continue ReadingTransplants
Dozens of tuberculosis infections, including northern Virginia, tied to putty used in orthopedic surgeries
A rare outbreak of tuberculosis among dozens of surgical patients — some of them at hospitals in northern Virginia — is under investigation by federal health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC suspects the infections may be tied to a malleable bone putty used in spinal and other orthopedic procedures…..
Continue ReadingGovernment indicts malpractice lawyer for allegedly trying to extort millions from Baltimore hospital
A Maryland attorney has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for an alleged scheme seeking a multi-million dollar payoff by the University of Maryland Medical System. Attorney Stephen Snyder is alleged by the government to have proposed a sham “consulting agreement” with the hospital, which would pay him $25 million, in order to….
Continue ReadingWhen organs get shipped as cargo, delays and losses become disastrous
For tens of thousands of patients anxiously awaiting lifesaving transplants, a new media investigation has provided what must be heart-breaking news on the laxity with which dozens of donated organs get transported, causing them to be lost or delayed “cargo” and rendered unusable. The nonprofit, independent Kaiser Health News Service and the Center for Investigative….
Continue ReadingHeart doctors under fire over their pricey practices
It’s one thing when modern medicine becomes so hidebound that it struggles over shedding a bit of traditional doctors’ garb. But new information emerging about cardiology’s entrenched reliance on maverick surgeons and evidence-light therapies in treating heart problems raises real questions: Exactly what’s going on in this costly area of care? Haider Warraich ── a….
Continue ReadingAs uterine surgeries are planned, transplant system’s ‘gaming’ can’t be ignored
Let’s give credit where it’s due: Transplant surgery, in popular lore, has become one of modern medicine’s most miraculous practices, not only saving individual lives but also blazing new frontiers about the functions of organs in the body and providing insights of large significance into the workings of the human immune system. This progress hasn’t….
Continue ReadingIn Search of Ways to Boost Organ Donations
Despite programs to encourage people to donate their organs for transplant, most state initiatives aren’t working to enlarge the pool of potential donors. Researchers writing in JAMA Internal Medicine earlier this month said the only thing that seems to work is when states create a fund to promote organ donations. According to the Organ Procurement….
Continue ReadingWhy Should Organ Donors Suffer for Their Selflessness?
In addition to their willingness to undergo a potentially risky invasive procedure for the benefit of someone else, living organ donors also are financially generous. Their out-of-pocket expenses average $5,000 because, although a recipient’s insurance covers the donor’s medical expenses, it doesn’t cover transportation, lodging, child care and lost wages. So there’s a movement to….
Continue ReadingStates Square Off Against Each Other in Allocation of Livers for Transplant
Rarely does the law of supply and demand have a sadder application than in the world of organ donations, and the latest case of too much need and too few resources has states doing battle with each other. According to a story on TheHill.com, “A heated redistricting battle has gripped the nation’s heartland this fall,….
Continue ReadingRabies from Infected Kidney Kills Transplant Recipient
The story begins in 2011, when a young Florida man died of brain inflammation from an unknown cause, and organs from his body were transplanted into four recipients. Fifteen months later, a Maryland man died of rabies, and now it turns out to have come from the transplanted kidney he got from the Florida donor…..
Continue Reading