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MEDICAL VULNERABILITY #1
Note the ease with which an undetectable, small needle can puncture both the outer wrapping and the introduction port of a standard IV fluid bag thus violating IV sterility and allowing someone to spike the IV. It would not take a great deal of imagination to devise and market intravenous fluid bags that are packaged and delivered in stronger outer plastic wrapping. The bags themselves should also be made with a cap on the injection port site. Additional replaceable caps should also be marketed to allow ‘re-sealing’ of the bag’s integrity after medicines are added to the bag.
MEDICAL VULNERABILITY #2
Example of a multi-dose vial of medicine. The medicine is manufactured with a preservative to allow for multiple uses over the course of many days, if desired. The problem is that once the outer cap is removed, the underlying rubber stopper can be re-entered countless times with a small needle without evidence of tampering. A second innovation that absolutely must be recognized (and mandated) is the addition of a predetermined harmless dye (one of several distinct colors) to the vials of those medicines that could potentially cause serious injury or death in the doses packaged and used in the medical setting. For example, red could be assigned to the class of non-depolarizing muscle relaxants, and orange to succinylcholine; blue could be assigned to the class of potent drugs used to increase blood pressure, and so on. When these medicines are injected for normal medicinal purposes, the coloring would harmlessly dissolve in the blood stream. If these ‘color-marked’ medicines, however, were injected into a bag of intravenous fluids (AND THERE WAS NO RELIABLE INDICATION—SIGNATURE/NOTE IN THE PATIENT RECORD—THAT THE BAG’S PURITY HAD BEEN PURPOSEFULLY VIOLATED BY THE PRACTITIONER), then the impurity would be grossly apparent and the bag could be immediately replaced.
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