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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

And why hasn’t he been charged with a crime?

These are deadly, incurable diseases, not just a common cold.

Although there certainly was a period during which an HIV diagnosis was viewed as a death sentence, medical advances have transformed it into a highly manageable condition.

> As a doctor, I’d rather have HIV than diabetes

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/as-a-doctor-i-d-rather-h...

We even have (expensive) drugs that can completely cure Hepatitis C and are seeing progress on treating Hep B.

They are still deadly, incurable diseases. If treated they become more harmless, yes, but that still makes you dependent on medication and treatment for the rest of your life.

Of course you wouldn't want to have diabetes either, which is also a serious condition. Overall the article isn't the best medical advice I heard though.

There shouldn't be any stigma around it, but any of those infections will change your life significantly.

"Don't worry, you only have to take drugs with major side-effects* that are also financially crippling for the rest of your life. You'll be fine."

Say that to somebody who was just "given" HIV by a malicious/incompenetent doctors and see how they react.

Aside from the side effects, any number of things can limit access to the meds - moving, job loss, insurance company fucking up paperwork.

* everything from anxiety, depression, liver damage, kidney damage, the list goes on and on.

Generally a crime needs mens rea. Not always but generally there needs to be some sort of intent. It is unclear from the article if the violation of the safety practices were intentional or due to ignorance or potentially lack of training on the employer's part. Since the article does mention that policies and procedures have been updated to account for this there may been some deficiencies discovered in their policies.

This is usually sufficient to explain why criminal charges have not been brought. If it was just simple incompetence but they believed they were following procedures to the best of their current knowledge it is unlikely they could get a conviction.

Incompetence is punishable

Incompetence doesn't often give rise to criminal liability, though.

Single physician across two employers. Thousands of people impacted, so the problem spanned years. And he was fired. Sounds like one guy got lazy to the point of maliciousness. But I’ll concede there aren’t enough details in the article to know what happened. I just know if I got a note in my e-file that I might have HIV, I’d be furious. And if I actually had it due to either malice or incompetence, I’d be out for blood.

> Generally there needs to be some sort of intent.

Often yes, but often not.

Criminal negligence is a thing. That's a standard of mens rea that's lower than intent, or foreknowlege, or recklessness. And it's particularly a thing in the context of licensed professions.

More than 2,400 patients at hospitals around Portland, Oregon, may have been exposed to infectious diseases such as hepatitis B and C, as well as HIV, because of an anesthesiologist who may not have followed infection control practices

What did he or she do? The article is vague, there is not enough information to know if or what crime there was. What does "may not have followed" mean?

If the physician negligently failed to perform a procedure, it is still not known if anyone was actually harmed by the negligence.

While these are very serious, Hepatitis A and B are preventable via vaccine, curable in many cases, and treatable. Hepatitis C is usually curable with antiretrovirals. HIV is clearly very serious but is manageable to a chronic condition with antiretrovirals.

I don't like taking the other side of this, but it doesn't seem necessary to pull out the pitchforks and torches absent a lot more information.

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