HCV New Drug Research

It seemed simple enough at the time. In 2009, John Harrison, a 63–year-old oil industry sales manager in Mission, Texas, had surgery to repair the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, a routine procedure that usually requires at most a single night’s stay in the hospital, followed by physical therapy. For Harrison, however, there was nothing routine about the ordeal that ensued.

 In the weeks following the surgery, his scar turned bright red, hot to the touch, and oozed thick fluid that looked “like butter squeezed from a bag.” Alarmed, Harrison’s wife, Laura, called The Methodist Hospital in Houston, where the surgery was performed. The doctor urged Harrison to immediately make the seven-hour drive back to Houston for an emergency checkup.

Was the Methodist case a fluke? Hardly. Filthy, dangerous medical implements have been showing up in hospitals and outpatient surgery centers with alarming regularity. In 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted that 10,737 veterans in Florida, Tennessee and Georgia were given endoscopies or colonoscopies between 2002 and 2009 with endoscopes that may have been improperly cleaned. Some of those patients later tested positive for HIV, hepatitis C, or hepatitis B. Several lawsuits filed against the VA by veterans are currently working their way through the courts, and attorneys expect many others to follow. Investigation of a 2008 hepatitis C outbreak that sickened at least six people in Las Vegas revealed that an outpatient surgery center was improperly cleaning endoscopes and reusing biopsy forceps designed for a single use. Following that outbreak, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pilot program inspected 1500 outpatient surgery centers and cited 28 percent for infection control deficiencies related to equipment cleaning and sterilization.

If someone is not in a war, but someone else declares war on them or actually attacks them, I would say the reality is that war has started and there are two opposing sides.

However, has that happened when it comes to stem cells?

 I’m by no means the only one who blogs about stem cells, but it is just that professors still are reluctant in the stem cell field to blog. Two outstanding blogs that tied for first place in my 2011 stem cell awards are the Stem Cell Network of Canada and Stem Cell Assays, by Drs. Gunn and Bersenev. As I said in my awards post, also worth noting is the CIRM Research Blog by the super Amy Adams, the winner of our 2010 Blog of the Year Award and the California Stem Cell Report by David Jensen, who is focused on CIRM predominantly.