opinion

A few days ago, two technicians of the National Oncological Institute were sentenced to four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the death of 12 victims of radiation overdoses suffered when they underwent treatment for pelvic cancer. Before the public accepts these sentences as just, it would be wise to consider a few facts.

In May, 2003, just 16 months ago, the government of the United States, via the Food and Drug Administration, forced the Multidata Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, to cease producing and distributing "radiation therapy medical devices." Moreover, Multidata began a recall of the software for the control of radiation devices worldwide in 2001, but did not complete the process until the middle of 2003, and it was these defective computer programs, still in use at Panama's Oncological Institute or cancer clinic, that resulted in the deaths.

Specifically mentioning the Panama cases, the agency declared it had "inspected Multidata several times between April 1993 and September 2001 and found extensive and persistent deficiencies in the firm's manufacturing practices during each inspection. The firm did not respond to warnings, and FDA observed the same violations recurring from one inspection to the next."

"Multidata Systems has a nine-year history of violations and failure to correct them," said FDA Commissioner Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD, announcing the consent decree that forced Multidata to stop manufacturing and shipping the products that were responsible for the injuries in Panama and elsewhere. "Despite repeated warnings, the company continued to manufacture its medical devices in a way which put the public health at risk. This cannot be tolerated." Apparently, however, it was tolerated for nine years.

Lacking sufficient means for their defense, defendants Olivia Saldaña and Alexis Alveo and their lawyers submitted magazine reports confirming the moral and legal responsibility of the Multidata Corporation from St. Louis, but they could not directly introduce adequate evidence because of the high cost of conducting a complete investigation in the United States, the country where the radiology equipment and software that operates it were produced. The judge took the journalistic reports under submission, but did not accord them the weight of evidence.

In the meantime, Saldaña and Alveo, educated, legally qualified, skilled and dedicated to the point of working long hours without additional compensation and carrying out their duties in an exemplary manner --- it was they who discovered to dangerous situation and reported it to their superiors --- are now facing four years in prison for having done their duty, using defective, badly maintained, overloaded and antiquated equipment, the only equipment available to them at the Oncological Institute. The real tragedy is that the truly responsible big shots at the Health Ministry and the Institute, who negligently permitted the defective software to continue in use, and the officers of the company barred from the business by the consent decree filed as an injunction with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, go unpunished, all balances squared, thank you very much, while the victims, exemplary Panamanian employees, go to jail.

When an editor of the US magazine Baseline asked Mick Conley, Multidata's general business manager in St. Louis, for his reaction to the sentencing Tuesday, he replied that it "does not surprise me." "I thought they were negligent and that's the way they would have been treated in the United States," he told Baseline.

This Panagringo from Washington and Volcan, Chiriqui, will be forgiven if I disagree with the distinguished Mr. Conley. As the officials of his own firm have demonstrated, in the United States they would have received nine years of inattention, then a light teacher's tap on the wrist, not a sentence to four years in prison and the loss of their professional licenses. The difference is that the negligent and cynical responsible parties have been acquitted by public opinion, while the real victims are the poor patients at the Institute who died and the technicians who only did their jobs.



Also in this section:
Keller, The loss of a partner
Lerner, Why Arafat failed
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Repugnant anti-Palestinian slurs
Jackson, Arafat and his successor
Committee to Protect Journalists, Totalitarian Iraqi press decree
Golinger, NED vs Venezuelan democracy
Leight, Brutal Haitian regime shows its true colors
Silié, The Rio Group and hemispheric integration
Leis, Youth and employment in Panama
Bernal, En route to darkness
Fishlow, Panamanian scapegoats for US company's malpractice

Back to top