AP: VA in Penn. botched cancer treatments

Is this how we treat our vets? Almost all of them who went into this VA hospital for treatment suffered horrible malpractice.

This idea of planting radioactive seeds into people doesn't make sense to me, in that what keeps you from irradiating your loved ones, pets, etc? Strange to me how they are prosecuting parents whose children refuse cancer treatment. I think for some people, it would have been better to say no to this one (the Johns Hopkins-degreed doctor accidentally put the seeds in people's bladders, rectums, etc. Oops!) because even after the horrific mistakes were found, what did they do? Covered it up. It's also unclear if this doc is still practicing or not. Yikes!

From the AP:

PHILADELPHIA – Ninety-two veterans were given incorrect radiation doses in a common surgical procedure to treat prostate cancer during a six-year period at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, according to newspaper reports Sunday.

A hospital team that performed the procedure botched it on 92 of 116 occasions and continued the treatment for a year even though monitoring equipment was broken, The New York Times said. The Philadelphia Inquirer said treatment errors occurred in 92 of 114 cases.

The cases involved brachytherapy, in which implanted radioactive seeds are used to kill cancer cells. Most veterans got significantly less than the prescribed dose while others received excessive radiation to nearby tissue and organs.