Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Sense Of Betrayal Runs Deep For Thousands Of Families Hurt By VA Pathologist's Misdiagnoses
The Washington Post: How Veterans Affairs Failed To Stop A Pathologist Who Misdiagnosed 3,000 Cases
By the time he and his wife Sara faced Veterans Affairs medical staff across a conference table in September, Kelly Copelin had lost 75 pounds and could swallow only small pieces of solid food. Radiation therapy had blistered his throat. This was the moment they would finally learn why their lives were so changed. Why when he went to the Fayetteville VA three years earlier with a severe earache, the biopsy came back negative — and he was given antibiotics instead of treatment for what was diagnosed 13 months later as late-stage neck and throat cancer. The pathologist who had misdiagnosed Copelin’s diseased tissue in 2015 was intoxicated, the hospital’s chief physician told the couple. He had failed to see the squamous cell carcinoma on the slide before him, the doctor said. (Rein, 8/30)
In other veterans' health care news —
The Associated Press: Feds: Probe Into Deaths At VA Hospital Is 'Top Priority'
Federal prosecutors said Friday a sweeping criminal probe into a number of suspicious deaths at a Veterans Affairs hospital in West Virginia would be their "top priority." Bill Powell, the U.S. attorney in West Virginia, said his office is involved in a "comprehensive federal criminal investigation" into the deaths of up to 11 patients at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg. At least two of the deaths have been ruled homicides, according to attorneys representing families of men who died. (8/30)
