万花筒 2013-04-05&04-07 美国牙医诊所严重医疗事故 不洁器械或致7000人感染艾滋病及肝炎

 Health officials are saying that a tosser dentist may have exposed thousands of patients to life-threating diseases ranging from HIV to Hepatitis. ABC's chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser is here with this disturbing story this morning.

It is disturbing. You know, I have spent my career in public health and it's not hard to prevent infections in dental offices. But what they found here was absolutely shocking.

Dr. W. Scott Harrington has been a trusted oral surgeon for 36 years. But now authorities believe he may have exposed thousands of patients to potentially deadly infections by allegedly using rusty³ instruments which weren't cleaned properly. Letters have been sent to 7,000 Oklahoma patients recommending they immediately be tested for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV after one of his patients with no known risk factors tested positive for Hepatitis C. In addition to allegations that he cleaned his instruments by improperly⁴ bleaching⁶ them which caused them to become porous⁷ over time. He's also accused of reusing needles and vials.

揟he instruments that came out of the autoclave(???;?????) were horrible. I wouldn't let my nephews play with them out in dirt, I mean they were horrible, they had rust² on them.?

He even reportedly had medications 20 years past their expiration⁸ date, and allowed unlicensed assistants to give IV (intravenous) medications. We've reached out to Dr. Harrington but he did not return calls.

-So 7,000 patients have got these letters to get tested for HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis A. I mean, what is, what are the chances more patients are gonna test positive given those conditions.

-Well, yeah, I mean, there are a couple of disturbing factors here. You know, many patients in his practice have HIV and Hepatitis C.

-He was treating a high -risk population.

-He was, he was. And he had instruments set aside for those patients and other instruments for patients where he didn't know there whether they were infected or not. That's very dangerous. All instruments should be treated the same. You know, last summer there were, there were 8,000 patients from Colorado who were notified and thankfully there none of them were infected. Here there's a much higher chance some people would get.

-But I would have thought soaking instruments in bleach⁵ would have killed anything, we keep hearing bleaches⁹ are the only thing that kills everything.

Well, for a lot of things, bleaches are the way to go; but these instruments have to go into something called an autoclave which uses pressure and heat. If you use bleaches on them first it disturbs the outside of the instruments so the autoclave no longer works.

-And they become porous and things can get inside.

-They can seek bin¹ and then the heat and the pressure don't kill those germs.

-So what are we supposed to look for, Richard, I mean, I got to a dentist office and usually I've got so much stuff in my mouth I can't see what's going on.

-A couple clues to look for: The first thing, if you ever see rusty or old instruments, that's a warning sign. The other is if your dentist isn't wearing gloves or isn't changing gloves between patients, find another dentist.

-So he should do that in front of me.

-Definitely. You should see that they are putting on fresh gloves, definitely.

-OK, I'll pay attention to those instruments.

-That's right.

-But thanks so much. Disturbing news. We'll keep on top of that.

1 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

2 rust   

n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退

参考例句：

• She scraped the rust off the kitchen knife.她擦掉了菜刀上的锈。
• The rain will rust the iron roof.雨水会使铁皮屋顶生锈。

3 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

4 improperly   

不正确地，不适当地

参考例句：

• Of course it was acting improperly. 这样做就是不对嘛！
• He is trying to improperly influence a witness. 他在试图误导证人。

5 bleach   

vt.使漂白；vi.变白；n.漂白剂

参考例句：

• These products don't bleach the hair.这些产品不会使头发变白。
• Did you bleach this tablecloth?你把这块桌布漂白了吗？

6 bleaching   

漂白法，漂白

参考例句：

• Moderately weathered rock showed more intense bleaching and fissuring in the feldspars. 中等风化岩石则是指长石有更为强烈的变白现象和裂纹现象。
• Bleaching effects are very strong and show on air photos. 退色效应非常强烈，并且反映在航空象片上。

7 porous   

adj.可渗透的，多孔的

参考例句：

• He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
• The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。

8 expiration   

n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物

参考例句：

• Can I have your credit card number followed by the expiration date?能告诉我你的信用卡号码和它的到期日吗?
• This contract shall be terminated on the expiration date.劳动合同期满，即行终止。

9 bleaches   

使（颜色）变淡，变白，漂白( bleach的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Oxidation of soils by bleaches can break down large molecules into smaller segments with polar sites. 关于漂白对污垢的氧化作用，使其大分子裂解为带极性基因的短链段。
• Clean up spilled medicines, bleaches and gasoline and other flammable liquids. 清除溢出的药品，漂白剂、汽油和其他易燃易爆液体。