Jury says chemotherapy drug death was "manslaughter"

Thursday, October 01, 2009 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: chemotherapy, health news, Natural News

(NaturalNews) A British woman, Anna McKenna, was being treated with chemotherapy in 2006. Due to a mistake by her pharmacist, she was given quadruple the dose of chemotherapy chemicals -- an error that continued for four treatment sessions and ultimately killed her (as chemotherapy is known to do).

When an investigation was launched into why she had been given a fatal overdose of chemotherapy, the prescription paperwork mysteriously disappeared. The pharmacist who made the fatal error was never identified, and no criminal charges were brought up. Even now, there are no plans to hold the pharmacist responsible for this manslaughter death of an innocent patient.

Doctors and pharmacists continue to get away with murder

Isn't it interesting that when victims are killed with pharmaceutical medicines, doctors and pharmacists are never held responsible for their roles in such deaths? If you run over someone with a car and kill them, you're held responsible. If you accidentally shoot your best friend in a hunting accident, you're held responsible (unless you're the U.S. Vice President, of course). If you have a swimming pool in your back yard, and a drunken neighbor drowns in your pool, you're also held responsible. But somehow, if you're a doctor or pharmacist, and you prescribe a fatal dose of toxic chemicals to a patient, you're off the hook!

Doctors and pharmacists have been getting away with murder for so long that no one even remembers what it's like to hold them responsible for their actions. Let's face it: They're in the business of dealing poisons. And when you deal in poison, there needs to be a level of personal responsibility that's adhered to by working professionals. But instead of professionalism, what we're seeing in this case is the complete abandonment of any such notion. When the patient dies, they simply "lose the paperwork" to cover their tracks.

Admittedly, being a pharmacist is a difficult job. Stress runs high, and there are countless details to remember about drug safety, drug interactions, proper dosages and so on. But the primary reason the job is so difficult is because the pharmaceuticals they're dealing with are so toxic in the first place.

Oops, we're sorry

In such a high stress, chemically-dangerous environment, errors are bound to happen sooner or later. But that's no excuse to disown any responsibility for those errors. If a structural engineer makes a mistake and people die in a hotel collapse, for example, that person is held responsible for their professional mistakes. Why are pharmacists and doctors so often given a free pass when their own mistakes cause people to die?

In this case, the victim's family only got an apology. "North Bristol NHS Trust would like to take this opportunity to repeat its sincere apologies and condolences to Mrs McKenna's family and friends," said Dr Chris Burton, Medical Director of North Bristol NHS Trust.

(In other words, "Oops, sorry. Your family member is dead and all we have to offer is this lousy apology.")

Dr Burton went on to say, "Patient safety is our priority and following Mrs McKenna's death, we made immediate and significant changes to our procedures around prescribing and issuing Idarubicin."

So they waited until someone died to beef up their safety procedures. And why not? When there are no criminal charges, no fines and no taking responsibility for their mistakes, there's really no incentive to avoid mistakes in the first place, is there?

Keep all this in mind if you or a loved one is considering chemotherapy. Keep in mind the simple fact that you can be killed by chemotherapy and no one will be held responsible for your death. If you die, they'll just say, "Oops!" and issue a weak apology. Then it's back to business as usual, making big money while patients buy the farm.

That's the cancer industry today -- an industry of death and profit, where patients are routinely killed by the very same chemicals these doctors claim are saving them.

To date, even with all the millions of people who have been treated by chemotherapy, there is not a single person who has ever been cured of cancer with chemo. There are countless people, however, who have been killed by it. And I'm not aware of a single family that has ever been properly compensate for the chemotherapy manslaughter of their loved one.

Sources for this article include:
The BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/b...