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New York Coverups That Only Tony Soprano Could Love ? Lead, Asbestos, and Medical Malpractice

By Joe Consumer

Remember that story line in The Sopranos, where Carmella's spec house was built with substandard materials, the building inspector wouldn?t OK it and finally Tony had Sil lean on the building inspector?  OK well there are a couple story lines in New York City today that make this Sopranos episode look like a safety video.

First, lead story in the New York Times today is an incredible tale of 68-year-old Saverio F. Todaro, who was ?licensed to make critical assessments of asbestos and lead risks in buildings and at construction sites across the city,? and who has now pleaded guilty to submitting ?clean asbestos or lead test results for well over 200 buildings and apartments,? having never conducted a single test.  According to the Times, ?the number of potential victims of Mr. Todaro?s fraud, which spanned at least a decade, loomed so large that the Manhattan United States attorney?s office, which is prosecuting the case, created a separate Web page to comply with a law requiring it to notify victims.?  Moreover, ?his admissions late last month have raised troubling questions about whether such conduct might be more widespread.?

The health and safety implications of this ? and the liability exposure of the city, which failed to oversee and catch this misconduct ? are extremely serious.  Lead poisoning causes irreversible brain damage in children and has been a huge problem in this city.  (See CJ&D?s booklet How The Civil justice System Protects Environmental Health for a discussion of the importance of civil cases in this area.)  In fact, this whole situation came to light over tests supposedly done in a Queens apartment where a child ?showed high levels of lead in his blood two years in a row.?  Asbestos poisoning is lethal and one of the biggest public health disasters of our time because of systemic cover-ups by industry.

The second big apparent continuing cover-up involves malpractice at New York hospitals. According to the New York Daily News (we'll add the link when it comes online but here's their earlier coverage), ?New York hospitals have reported sharply dropping numbers of mishaps, a new study says - causing probers to wonder whether the medical centers are holding back.? 

The paper reports, "By law, all hospitals must report serious 'adverse incidents' to the state through a computerized system called NYPORTS - New York Patient Occurrence Reporting and Tracking System." Reported adverse incidents suspiciously fell "from 30,416 in 2002 to 12,091 in 2007," and ?the trend shows continuing problems with underreporting mistakes.?

The problem was particularly acute in New York City hospitals, which reported the lowest level of reported incidents. They reported 350 per 100,000 patients in 2007 - the last year tallied - compared with 428 statewide.

"That's something you have to look at," [Art Levin of the Center for Medical Consumers] said. "I do not believe the city hospitals by definition keep their patients safer than hospitals upstate.

"I think you have to ask, 'What is going on in New York City?' "

There are a lot of things we could say at this point.  I think we?ll just leave it there!

Full post as published by ThePopTort on April 27, 2010 (boomark / email).