AUSTRALIA —

The medicines and health products that failed Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) testing

Nothing new here.  The notorious TGA, Australia’s medicines regulator, lets the public again – routine maladministration.

Dodgy vitamins, contaminated medicines, a flu vaccine that didn’t work, ineffective hospital disinfectant and unreliable pregnancy tests are among products that have failed the national medicine regulator’s first published laboratory testing.

For the first time, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has released results of its routine product testing for quality and safety.

It admits that until now it has given the Australian public “very little” information about its testing activities.

PRODUCTS THAT FAILED THE TESTS:

• Bio-Logical Vitamins A and E Solution (Biological Therapies)
• Three batches of FLUVAX 2016 inactivated influenza vaccine, split virion thiomersal free 0.5mL injection syringe (CSL)
• All-purpose Cleaner Hospital Grade Disinfectant (Pelikan Artline)
• Digital Infrared Ear Themometer (Kogan Australia)
• Braun Touchless + Forehead Thermometer (RQSolutions Medical Devices Distribution Support)
• Feather Touch Vinyl Examination Gloves (Pro-Pac Packaging Australia)
• First Response Digital Pregnancy Test (Church and Dwight Australia)
• One Step Pregnancy Test (Minco Import & Export)
• Valoid cyclizine lactate 50mg/1mL injection ampoule (Amdipharm Mercury Australia)
• Seat Assemblies for Series-O Oxygen Regulator (Cigweld)
• Leukoplast Tan Surgical Tape (BSN Medical)
• Gauze from Procedure Kit (Multigate Medical Products)
• Chinese Sports Injuries Pill (Beeijing Tong Ren Tang Australia)
• 32 unregistered supplements, pills and capsules
• Various Kaiser Pharmaceutical supplements (Great Grand Care)

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2017

Read more at http://beta.9news.com.au/health/2017/06/26/19/20/the-medicines-and-products-that-failed-tga-testing#GpgzzEPRgXz5t1ca.99

SYDNEY —

The manslaughter trial into the death of the late Mrs Kerry McAllister in May 1996 concluded today with Judge Peter Zahra deciding that the Crown didn’t prove its case beyond reasonable doubt for gross criminal negligence.

Evidence before the court indicated that because Mrs McAllister “didn’t complain enough” her treating doctor “got off”.  This implies that Mrs McAllister was the cause of her own death.  Mrs McAllister was ill, critically ill, from septic shock and when patients are ill they do not complain.

She died 5 days after giving birth from sepsis following multiple organ failure because antibiotics were not administered following childbirth when she had a fever.  In this day and age for a new mother to die from sepsis IS criminal neglect.

Graeme REEVES, the ‘Butcher of Bega’ walks free from this crime and many others.  Inadequate medical record keeping added to his freedom.

The DPP dropped 61 charges in December 2013 but not on the merits of evidence; an outrageous decision by the NSW Attorney-General and a travesty of justice for Reeves’ many other victims.

Criminal doctor Graeme Stephen REEVES previous sentence was 3 years 6 months and he served 2 years 6 months.  He got out of jail early because he complained the jail health system was not up to his standards.

SYDNEY —

The psychiatrist slammed for misleading police by saying the Lindt Cafe terrorist was just “grandstanding” has been sacked.

The high profile psychiatrist, whose name is suppressed for some peculiar reason, has previously come under fire in court.

Well-known as an expert witness, the psychiatrist was previously criticized by a tribunal for preparing a report on a doctor who drugged and raped a patient based only on what the guilty doctor told him.  The tribunal rejected his opinion that the doctor would not do it again as having “little weight”

READ MORE:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/police-sack-lindt-psychiatrist/news-story/87c211f9ee93476fafba7f93acdb9a14

SYDNEY — Dr Frank SIMONSON, found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.  In layman’s terms a dodgy doctor.

This is the Merimbula, southern New South Wales, doctor who has a track record of malpractice.  He’s a mate of criminal Butcher of Bega Graeme REEVES.  They conducted operations together.  Yes, when Butcher Reeves was barred from practising obstetrics.  Didn’t stop either of them engaging in medical fraud.

This is the doctor who let baby Elijah Slavkovic die in 2009 – a 3 month old baby who presented to Pambula Hospital, when SIMONSON couldn’t be bothered treating and caring for baby Elijah and fobbed him, with Elijah’s parents, off to Bega Hospital and a hospital runaround beyond belief.

If the HCCC had done its job in 2009, other patients may not have suffered the same fate and lived.  Dr Simonson’s methods haven’t changed since the Medical Tribunal inquired into his “ways” back in September 2006.  But his history went back before that.

He should be barred from practising medicine.  The public needs protecting. Country people have been lumbered with him for more than a decade and nothing’s changed.

READ MORE:

https://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Media-releases/2017/Dr-Frank-Simonson—Unsatisfactory-professional-conduct

ONTARIO, CANADA — 3 June 2017

A former nurse has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of eight nursing home residents in one of the worst serial-killer cases in Canadian history.

Elizabeth WETTLAUFER also pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

The 49-year-old, who appeared in a Woodstock, Ontario, courtroom, admitted to killing eight seniors and hurting six others.

Wettlaufer acknowledged under questioning from the judge that she injected all 14 with insulin for no medical reason.

All the incidents allegedly occurred between 2007 and 2014 in three Ontario long-term care facilities where Wettlaufer worked as a registered nurse.

SYDNEY

State Coroner of New South Wales his Hon Michael Barnes, handed down his Finding into the 2014 Lindt Cafe siege in Martin Place, Sydney.

Summing up medical advice:  Psychiatrist’s role was suboptimal.

MEAG COMMENT:  Police didn’t shoot the terrorist because the consultant doctor said he wasn’t dangerous.  Another warped medical opinion believed.  The psychiatrist provided erroneous advice which didn’t help the  process.

AUSTRALIA — -Another day, another medical botch-up.

More than 200 women will give evidence to a Senate Inquiry into the “adverse effects” experienced following the insertion of transvaginal mesh implants.  Senator Derryn Hinch spearheaded the inquiry, describing the medical intervention as one of the worst mass cases of medical negligence since doctors widely prescribed thalidomide to cure morning sickness.  Those adverse events include chronic pain, erosion of the implant, disability, loss of sexual function, constant bleeding and ongoing incontinence.

Transvaginal mesh implants were approved for use in 2005 by the Therapeutic Drugs Administration (TGA), but no clinical trials had been performed.  Horrifyingly, the procedure is irreversible.

You might be wondering how thousands of women can have been told that transvaginal mesh implants (branded by Johnson & Johnson) [Remember them?  Think DePuy toxic hip implants] could “fix” pelvic organ prolapse when there was barely any evidence to support the long (or even short) term efficacy. But this disgraceful, widespread medical malpractice is just one extreme example of the general dismissiveness shown towards women’s health and particularly the health of postpartum women.

Another medical botch-up by Johnson & Johnson.  Another botch-up by “our TGA”.  The malfeasance of Australia’s federal health department TGA never stops.  Are Australian women medical guinea pigs, or what?

LADIES!  A reminder to lodge your submission to the Australian Senate BEFORE 31 May 2017.

SYDNEY — Lismore hospital death: Daughter claims nurses lied to her about how her mentally ill mother died

The daughter of a woman who died after she was left to wander the halls of a New South Wales hospital while naked and covered in faeces says nurses there lied to her about what happened.

Miriam Merten died in 2014 from a brain injury after she fell over more than 20 times at the Mental Health Unit of Lismore Base Hospital, on the state’s north coast.

A coronial inquest heard she was locked in a seclusion room for hours, and when the two nurses supervising her unlocked the door they allowed her to wander around naked, covered in faeces.  She continued to fall over outside the seclusion room.

Coroner Jeff Linden found she died from “traumatic brain injury caused by numerous falls and the self-beating of her head on various surfaces, the latter not done with the intention of taking her life”.

“The sight of the deceased wandering the corridor naked and covered in excrement while the senior nurse is seen to mop the floor, apparently oblivious to her is horrific,” he said.

The state’s chief psychiatrist Murray Wright said he was equally shocked.

“I can’t speak for what was happening in the minds of those nurses but I think it’s an absolutely appalling incident,” he said.

READ MORE of ABC Lucy McNally’s story:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/lismore-hospital-death-daughter-says-nurses-lied-about-death/8520214

MEAG COMMENT:  Another day, another patient, another disaster.  The trouble is this is not a one-off.

LONDON —Victims of the United Kingdom’s tainted blood scandal could sue the Government after evidence emerged of a cover-up.

Documents suggest officials knew the blood products were harmful – yet continued to allow them to be given to patients.

Thousands of sufferers of the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia were given infected products on the NHS in the 1970s and 1980s.

The supply was contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C, having been donated by prisoners, drug addicts and prostitutes seeking cash.

More than 2000 patients died and many others have serious illnesses.

Documents uncovered by the son of one of the victims suggest that officials were aware the products were high-risk as early as 1983. Jason Evans, 27, whose father Jonathan died in 1993 after being given HIV-infected products, has spent the past year trawling freedom of information responses and official archives.

One of the most damning pieces of evidence is a memo of a meeting of senior officials at the Department of Health in July 1983. They agree there is a particularly high risk from products bought from New York and Los Angeles.

Last month former health secretary Andy Burnham called for a public inquiry.  He said separate evidence had come to light suggesting doctors and public officials had been involved in a criminal cover-up.

READ MORE:

Notice this is not in the Australian press?  In the New Zealand Herald, no less. 

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11852992

SYDNEY — Doctor Brian CRICKETT, 63, was found guilty of murder today and jailed for 27 years, with a non-parole period of 20 years.

The “patient”, Crickett’s wife, wasn’t even a diabetic, nor his patient, rather a trusting wife, but her murdering husband injected with her with a lethal dose of fast-acting insulin for one sole purpose – to kill her.  He must have been reading the dead mass-murderer’s Dr Harold Shipman’s guidebook.

He did it on a Thursday night – New Year’s eve 2009 – and went out to stay with his lover leaving his wife to die.  By the time he returned and reported “finding her dead”, he knew there would be no autopsy over the weekend and by the Monday the insulin would have disappeared from her system.

READ MORE

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/dr-brian-crickitt-who-murdered-wife-with-lethal-insulin-dose-sentenced-to-20-years-jail/news-story/f6fd4b6da9ce2494f1ca793bfca7508d

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-gp-jailed-for-murdering-wife-at-new-years-to-be-with-lover-20170505-gvz2q5.html