Patient turns harsh light on clinics reusing syringes

She was one of 99 people at the clinic in Fremont, population 25,000, to be infected with the liver disease often associated with IV drug users, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

 

"I went to the doctor to be healed, and I came away with a life-threatening illness," McKnight says. "There is a huge sense of betrayal."

To keep that from happening elsewhere, last fall she co-founded a patient advocacy group, HONOReform, that uses advocacy and education to stop the kind of medical errors by which blood-borne diseases are transmitted.

So when she heard about the latest outbreak, which came to light late last month in Las Vegas, "I just felt sick to my stomach. This shouldn't still be happening. This should not be going on in a first-world country in 2008."

But it is.

Though the vast majority of medical professionals practice safely and cleanly, 31 outbreaks of viral hepatitis associated with unsafe medical practices, including those in Fremont and Las Vegas, have occurred since 1999, the CDC says. An outbreak is defined by two or more people being infected.

Letters to 40,000 people

In the case in Las Vegas, seven people with acute hepatitis C were found to be infected at two related endoscopy centers, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.