Months after the Food and Drug Administration began an investigation into dozens of cases of radiation overdoses that have left scores of patients injured, Arizona medical malpractice lawyers, patients and patient safety group have few clues to how these overdoses occurred. 

The New York Times first brought national attention to patient overdoses at some of the country's biggest hospitals, including Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai.  The overdoses were noticed last summer, and since then, the Food and Drug Administration has begun an investigation into these cases.  Ten months later, the agency still has not made clear what these investigations have yielded.  In the meantime, equipment manufacturers including GE, and the hospitals where these overdoses occurred, continue to engage in a battle of words blaming each other for the over-radiation.

GE's equipment is involved in many of the radiation cases, although some of the scanners were made by Toshiba.  GE says that the over-radiation was the result of programming errors that were made by the staff of the hospitals.  To be fair, preliminary investigations have not revealed any equipment malfunctioning problems.  However, the hospitals insist that the equipment was designed unsafely, and should have come with proper safeguards that would have automatically shut the equipment down if there was a danger of over-radiation.

Unfortunately, the equipment did not come with such safeguards or devices.  As a result, dozens of patients received massive radiation overdoses that has left them with hair loss, headaches, and confusion and fear of long-term health effects from the over-radiation.  Among the long-term health effects these patients face, is the development of cancer.

Arizona medical malpractice lawyers hope the FDA will wind up its investigation quickly, and recommend measures that can be taken by other hospitals around the country to prevent more over dosages.