fucked up things done to, and by, our troops
On the "how is this supporting our troops?" motif, improperly sterilized biopsy equipment may have put 22,000 vets at risk of herpes and HIV. Apparently, nobody told the VA to scrub their instruments.
Dennis Maki, an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the prostate examination technique involves inserting a stainless steel scope about the diameter of a pencil into the rectum. Then doctors use a hollow needle to draw a sample from the prostate gland.
The standard sterilizing procedure called for the equipment to be flushed with a disinfecting solution, but officials grew concerned that blood and fecal residue might remain unless the tube were physically scrubbed as well.
Ok, I don't know about you, but my baseline assumption for any medical equipment that has ever been in contact with other people's bodily fluids is that they sterilize the ever-living shit out of it (pun intended) before it comes in contact with my bodily fluids... and that some things are just not reused. Like scalpal blades and needles. But, ok, stainless steel scope, it gets reused, fine, whatever. Are they telling me that isn't, I dunno, autoclaved, between procedures? ... ew. Really glad I don't have a prostate right now... and I'm going to have to have a chat with my NP before a speculum touches me again.
Besides, I'm sure it's not just vets getting this test done. So either everywhere else has figured out that you wash the goddamn ass scope, or more than these 22,000 vets are at risk. Based on the comment from the manufacturer of the ass scope, I'm guessing it's the former:
Even if the instructions didn't call for brushing, medical officials should have known it was necessary, Maki said.
"I'm really surprised and somewhat dismayed. If you have any apparatus that comes into contact with deep sterile tissues, you have to do everything you can to ensure it's sterile," he said.
Thankfully, so far there are no infections reported, the risk is said to be low, and veterans groups seem to be taking it in stride.
Michael O'Rourke, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he was satisfied with the VA's response.
"I don't know what more they can do," he said. "I'm more concerned with the data that was compromised for those 26 million veterans," referring to the personal information of veterans that was stolen from a VA employee in May.
Yes, but isn't it such a vivid example of how our government fucks vets up the ass?
**
Switching gears to outrages perpetrated by our soliders instead of on them...
Raw Story has still photos of the civilians massacred by U.S. troops at Ishaqi, not published in U.S. media. WARNING: extremely graphic photos of dead bodies, including a baby shot through the head. Do not scroll past the text section if you're not prepared to view them.
"We know from photographic evidence that the corpses of two men, four shrouded figure s (women, according to the villagers), and five children - all of them apparently under the age of five, one as young as seven months - were pulled from the rubble of the house and laid out for burial beneath the bright, blank desert sky. We know that an Associated Press reporter on the scene saw the ruined house, and a photographer for Agence France Presse took the pictures of the bodies."
The horrible unspoken question is, considering how restricted journalists' movements in Iraq are, and the odds of them happening to show up at a raid, how many times must this have happened when reporters and photographers weren't there?
I'd say something about these toddlers being enemies of the democratic government in Iraq, but I just can't be that glib. We're murdering children over there. And I say we because they're our troops, our countrymen and women, and even those of us who would never put a yellow ribbon sticker on our cars can't disown them when they shame us.
But the real shame is on George W. Bush and his administration. Wars amongst civilians will create atrocities. This war was never necessary, and they always knew that. By choosing an unnecessary war, they in effect said, "Let the babies and grandmothers die. Why should we care?"
Even though an investigation has cleared the GIs at Ishaqi, Editor and Publisher says that the Ishaqi coverup, like the Haditha one, maybe be falling apart.
And the Haditha coverup has well and truly fallen apart:
US President George Bush pleaded with Americans this week to wait until the inquiries were finished before judging what happened on that autumn morning. But his body language suggested that he already knew that there had been a massacre of 24 civilians by US marines.
Btw, if you're having trouble keeping track of all the civilian massacres, you're not the only one.
Dennis Maki, an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the prostate examination technique involves inserting a stainless steel scope about the diameter of a pencil into the rectum. Then doctors use a hollow needle to draw a sample from the prostate gland.
The standard sterilizing procedure called for the equipment to be flushed with a disinfecting solution, but officials grew concerned that blood and fecal residue might remain unless the tube were physically scrubbed as well.
Ok, I don't know about you, but my baseline assumption for any medical equipment that has ever been in contact with other people's bodily fluids is that they sterilize the ever-living shit out of it (pun intended) before it comes in contact with my bodily fluids... and that some things are just not reused. Like scalpal blades and needles. But, ok, stainless steel scope, it gets reused, fine, whatever. Are they telling me that isn't, I dunno, autoclaved, between procedures? ... ew. Really glad I don't have a prostate right now... and I'm going to have to have a chat with my NP before a speculum touches me again.
Besides, I'm sure it's not just vets getting this test done. So either everywhere else has figured out that you wash the goddamn ass scope, or more than these 22,000 vets are at risk. Based on the comment from the manufacturer of the ass scope, I'm guessing it's the former:
Even if the instructions didn't call for brushing, medical officials should have known it was necessary, Maki said.
"I'm really surprised and somewhat dismayed. If you have any apparatus that comes into contact with deep sterile tissues, you have to do everything you can to ensure it's sterile," he said.
Thankfully, so far there are no infections reported, the risk is said to be low, and veterans groups seem to be taking it in stride.
Michael O'Rourke, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he was satisfied with the VA's response.
"I don't know what more they can do," he said. "I'm more concerned with the data that was compromised for those 26 million veterans," referring to the personal information of veterans that was stolen from a VA employee in May.
Yes, but isn't it such a vivid example of how our government fucks vets up the ass?
**
Switching gears to outrages perpetrated by our soliders instead of on them...
Raw Story has still photos of the civilians massacred by U.S. troops at Ishaqi, not published in U.S. media. WARNING: extremely graphic photos of dead bodies, including a baby shot through the head. Do not scroll past the text section if you're not prepared to view them.
"We know from photographic evidence that the corpses of two men, four shrouded figure s (women, according to the villagers), and five children - all of them apparently under the age of five, one as young as seven months - were pulled from the rubble of the house and laid out for burial beneath the bright, blank desert sky. We know that an Associated Press reporter on the scene saw the ruined house, and a photographer for Agence France Presse took the pictures of the bodies."
The horrible unspoken question is, considering how restricted journalists' movements in Iraq are, and the odds of them happening to show up at a raid, how many times must this have happened when reporters and photographers weren't there?
I'd say something about these toddlers being enemies of the democratic government in Iraq, but I just can't be that glib. We're murdering children over there. And I say we because they're our troops, our countrymen and women, and even those of us who would never put a yellow ribbon sticker on our cars can't disown them when they shame us.
But the real shame is on George W. Bush and his administration. Wars amongst civilians will create atrocities. This war was never necessary, and they always knew that. By choosing an unnecessary war, they in effect said, "Let the babies and grandmothers die. Why should we care?"
Even though an investigation has cleared the GIs at Ishaqi, Editor and Publisher says that the Ishaqi coverup, like the Haditha one, maybe be falling apart.
And the Haditha coverup has well and truly fallen apart:
US President George Bush pleaded with Americans this week to wait until the inquiries were finished before judging what happened on that autumn morning. But his body language suggested that he already knew that there had been a massacre of 24 civilians by US marines.
Btw, if you're having trouble keeping track of all the civilian massacres, you're not the only one.