Many years ago, one of my
responsibilities working for a medical device manufacturer was to
investigate deaths and serious injuries associated with our
hemodialysis machines in accordance with the FDA’s Medical Device
Reporting (MDR) requirement.
Sometimes deaths were due to instrument
failures, but more frequently they were caused by a human error or
instrument misuse. I investigated one such case where a string of
patient deaths occurred in a relatively short period of time at a
particular chain of dialysis centers. All the deaths occurred during
or shortly after the dialysis treatment.
At one of the clinics where three deaths
were reported, I met with the CEO/owner of the dialysis center chain.
He was also its Chief Nephrologist. In examining the machines, I
noticed that every blood pump had been cranked up to maximum speed.
I reported this to him, mentioning that some dialysis patients cannot
tolerate the high blood flow rate, particularly those with heart
disease. All of the patients who died had a history of coronary
problems.
An unfortunate trend was growing at the
time toward “rapid dialysis”, where the treatments were shortened
and sped up in order to treat more patients per day, thereby
increasing dialysis center
profits (and shortening patients’
lives). The CEO shrugged off my concern, saying he had already
signed their death certificates, listing “natural causes” as
cause of death.
As Chief Nephrologist, no one would
question his word. Dialysis patients are very frail, their kidney
failure almost always associated with chronic comorbidities such as
cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. I reported the deaths to the FDA
as “operator misuse”, but that was as far as it would go. “Rapid
dialysis” was a recognized prescribed treatment, and the FDA does
not regulate the professional judgment of physicians. (Subsequent
clinical studies have discouraged this treatment practice.)
Similarly, there are no checks or
balances on the reporting of deaths attributed to COVID-19, a.k.a.
the Wuhan Flu. No test for the virus is required as verification to
the cause of death listed on each death certificate. The physician’s
word and signature are all that are required.
The incentives and potential for abuse of
this practice are tremendous. “Medical errors” is the third
largest cause
of death in the United States, right after heart disease and
cancer. Coincidentally, cardiologists are reporting an amazing 40%
to 60% reduction in heart disease so far this year, with deaths
plummeting.
There are normally over 600,000 deaths
due to heart disease each year and only 17,000 deaths so far from
COVID. If this reduction holds true we should see a huge decrease in
the overall US death rate and a dramatic rise in life expectancy this
year. And yet pundits in the leftist media are spreading panic about
supposed body bag shortages and mass graves being dug. The truth
will soon become apparent, assuming the data is not corrupt. But
data corruption could be happening.
With thousands of new ventilators
arriving a hospitals, some made in China and others made in
automobile
factories, the odds of instrument failures from manufacturing
issues and errors by poorly-trained operators are greatly increased.
Normally, the death rate for patients on ventilators is 40% to 50%.
New York City hospitals are currently reporting an 80%
death rate on ventilators. Can this difference be entirely
attributable to the virus? That is highly doubtful. Having also
investigated patient deaths while being treated on ventilators, I can
attest that many are caused by instrument failure and operator error.
The normally high incidence of medical
errors, many resulting in malpractice lawsuits, is exacerbated by the
pandemic crisis. With the urgent requirement for additional medical
equipment, doctors, nurses, and medical technicians, combined with
the compressed time for adequate training, the number of errors
should be significantly increasing. It will be interesting to see if
this is reflected in the statistics, or if it mysteriously declines
like the rate of heart disease deaths this year.
Increased incentive to misdiagnose is
provided by Medicare, which pays hospitals an additional
$13,000 for each COVID-19 patient, and an additional $39,000 per
COVID-19 patient on a ventilator. Physicians are being officially
coached in writing by HHS on how to fill out death certificates
indicating the COVID virus as the cause of death with no physical
evidence required.
The temptations loom large for physicians
to fudge or outright falsify death certificates, blaming the COVID
virus to hide malpractice and medical errors. The chances of getting
caught and punished are minuscule to none.
In any profession, there are those who
are ethically-challenged. But doctors who intentionally falsify
death certificates are not only artificially inflating the COVID
death rate, they are participating in the killing of America by
helping prolong the shut-down.
Andrew Thomas
