Last weekend, the Philadelphia VA Medical Center admitted that its prostate cancer treatment program had violated federal codes and compromised patients’ health.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission — a government organization that oversees use of nuclear technologies — received a letter Jan. 15 on behalf of the VA, taking responsibility for eight safety citations from the NRC.
In the investigated treatments, radioactive iodine-125 seeds were intended to be injected into the prostate to combat cancer. Gary Kao, a radiation oncologist at the School of Medicine, reportedly misplaced the seeds in 92 of 116 procedures.
The penalty the VA faces can range from a notice of future actions to a $500,000 fine. Deciding the penalty will take over a month, Viktoria Mitlyng, representative for the NRC, said.
Nevertheless, according to Mitlyng, the VA’s acceptance of responsibility is a signal that the issue is “moving in a positive direction.”
“I accept the violations,” read the letter, written by Gerald Cross, under secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
This was a sudden reversal in stance for the VA, which had previously denied accusations of wrongdoing.
“What was surprising was their original position,” Mitlyng said. “We’d been doing inspections and [speaking with] the VA for months, and we had no indication that the violations would be argued with.”
