Did you ever hear about these deaths do to a software glitch

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Mobi Denver, CO(Zone 6a) Jan 18, 2004

Warning: This is very disturbing and true

Between 1985 and 1987 there were a few deaths from radiation treatments from a particular machine while patients were going under radiation treatments. Because of a SOFTWARE error the machine in question gave massive doses of radiation to patients.

This entire story is horrible and depressing. I don't remember hearing about this in the news and just recently came across this link.

If you really want to find out more here is the link - but beware it is very scary.

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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kooger Oostburg, WI(Zone 5b) Jan 21, 2004

Yes, I would agree it is horrible what happened to these people. I feel sympathy for them and their families. I don't find is depressing really, more sad that it usually costs some lives to correct problems. I also feel awe in the brilliance of the engineers who develop these complex machines for the purpose of saving lives. As always, risks are involved. What I find amazing is the ability of people to find the errors and then find ways to correct them. Sad as lives lost is, I wonder how many patients were healed and lived longer because of this technology we have today. I think the lesson to be learned in this is to always ask questions of your doctors, know the risks as well as possible, (of course, with some treatments all the risks are probably not known), and pray that you have made the right decision.

This message was edited Jan 23, 2004 11:40 AM

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