=?windows-1252?Q?=93The_treatment_you_received_did_not?==?wi ndows-1252?Q?_meet_V=2EA=2E=92s_high_standard_of_care=2C ?==?windows-1252?Q?_Richard=94?=

The [Philadelphia VA] hospital suspended the brachytherapy program on
June 11 last year. By then, 45 substandard implants had been found.

Two days later, the Joint Commission, which helps set standards in the
hospital industry, surveyed the Philadelphia V.A. and on the next day
accredited the hospital. “This organization is in full compliance with
applicable standards,” the Joint Commission said.

The commission said that it had no indications of the problems in the
brachytherapy program when it arrived at the hospital and that its
surveys are not detailed enough to have uncovered the flawed implants.

Soon after, the N.R.C. sent its own inspectors to Philadelphia. And the
more the inspectors looked, the more they found. All told, 57 of the
implants delivered too little radiation to the prostate, either because
the seeds missed the prostate or were not distributed properly inside
the prostate. Thirty-five other cases involved overdoses to other parts
of the body. An unspecified number of patients were both underdosed in
the prostate and overdosed elsewhere.





http://tinyurl.com/lmcqav

"Dr. Kao did not deny placing large numbers of seeds outside the
prostate, but he said investigators were wrong to single him out. “It’s
a recognized risk of the procedure,” he told the panel. Dr. Kao’s
assertion was disputed by Steven A. Reynolds, who oversees materials
safety at the N.R.C., which regulates all nuclear materials. Cases where
large numbers of seeds miss the prostate, Mr. Reynolds said, “happen
very, very infrequently.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/he...0veterans.html

w/Flippin's medical records