Medical homicide disaster

BACKGROUND: Mercury is a naturally occurring heavy metal that finds wide application in industrial and household settings. It exists in three chemical forms which include elemental (Hg0 ), inorganic mercurous (Hg+) or mercuric (Hg++) salts, and organic compounds. All forms are highly toxic, particularly to the nervous, gastrointestinal, and renal systems. Common circumstances of exposure include recreational substance use, suicide or homicide attempts, occupational hazards, traditional medicines, and endemic food ingestions as witnessed in the public health disasters in Minamata Bay, Japan and in Iraq...

On November 23, 2006, former Russian military intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital. Authorities determined he was deliberately poisoned with the radionuclide Polonium-210 (210Po). Police subsequently discovered that those involved in this crime had--apparently inadvertently--spread 210Po over many locations in London. The United Kingdom Health Protection Agency (HPA) contacted many persons who might have been exposed to 210Po and provided voluntary urine testing. Some of those identified as potentially exposed were U...

This study was conducted from 10.02.08 to 23.05.09 in general surgery wards of Chittagong Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh with multi-factorial views of clinical aspects and an alarming model image in such relation was depicted. 188 (72.9 %) patients in this study out of 258 were male it was and found that different types of trauma had been relatively higher in 51-70 yrs (35.1 %) age group followed by 31-50 yrs (28.7 %) age group in case of male subjects. On the contrary, in female, those were quite higher in 11-30 yrs (31...

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On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and resulted in widespread devastation. The collapse of social services including medical care was followed by chaos and resulted in many deaths. In this aftermath, a physician and two nurses were charged with homicide in the deaths of four patients who were under their care at a New Orleans Hospital. The circumstances surrounding these deaths are unclear, and causation far from proven. But in any disaster setting, if healthcare providers contribute to a patient's death, there are a limited number of possible scenarios...

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This paper shows how discontinuities in the process of drug delivery enable but also underdetermine the isolation of a culprit in adverse medication events. A case example illustrates how we are forced to abandon conceptualizations of blame that assume a dichotomy (either culpable or not), and shift instead to a more nuanced version that estimates the degree to which an actor desired, generated, or could have foreseen the harmful outcome, and the extent to which constraints external to the actor altered the event...

This article examines the meaning of the killing of four patients with disabilities on the Life Care ward of Tenet's Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in anticipation of hurricane Katrina. None were terminally ill. None were in pain. None knew their lives were about to end. None were evacuated. The victims had one thing in common: they all had chosen to be designated as Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) patients. All were killed with overdoses of medications that had not been prescribed for them. Dr. Daniel Nuss of the Louisiana State University School of Medicine and Dr...

The response to the recent shooting tragedy in Virginia shows that key components of a disaster plan, when well designed and regularly practiced, can help staff swing into action and follow the plan with as few glitches as possible. It also points out the critical nature of accurate and uninterrupted communications. A color-coded triage process in the field can help avoid logjams in the ED. Having a triage nurse at the ED entrance to double-check patients will further ensure appropriate care. Have a well-defined "telephone tree" in place to ensure adequate staff when disaster strikes...

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Contemporary planning for disaster response to terrorist events usually assumes the use of chemical, radiological, or biological weapons. Historically, most victims of terrorist attacks are injured by the use of conventional explosives rather than weapons of mass destruction. Such attacks will likely produce victims who have suffered burn injuries along with conventional trauma. Alternately, the large number of patients sustaining conventional soft-tissue or crush injuries will benefit from burn center expertise...

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BACKGROUND: Terrorist bombings remain a significant threat in the United States. However, minimal longitudinal data exists regarding the medical and public health impact because of bombings. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of the number of incidents, injuries, and deaths because of explosive, incendiary, premature, and attempted bombings from January 1983 to December 2002. Morbidity and mortality by motives, target locations, and materials used were evaluated...

OBJECTIVE: To establish and analyse the causes and circumstances of all deaths among British seafarers who were working in flags of convenience merchant shipping between 1976 and 1995, to compare mortality with British seafarers employed in British merchant shipping, and to discuss implications for health and safety. METHODS: A retrospective longitudinal study of occupational mortality, based on official mortality files. RESULTS: Out of a total of 200 deaths in flags of convenience shipping, illnesses caused 68 deaths, accidents 91, homicide 3, suicide 7, drug and alcohol intoxication 4, and disappearances at sea and other unknown causes 27...

All deaths due to unnatural causes and deaths that are believed to be due to natural causes but where the medical cause of death is not certain or known are subjected to an inquest. The objective of an inquest is to ascertain facts pertaining to the death. This is achieved by inquiry and at the conclusion of the inquest a verdict is arrived as to whether the death was due to a natural, accidental, suicidal or a homicidal cause. An inquest is not a trial. There is no complainant or defendant and at the conclusion of the inquest no judgment is passed...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.