dr. kao and the rogue cancer unit

This is a crazy story out of Philadelphia about a "rogue" cancer unit the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where dozens of patients received substandard prostate cancer treatments.. and everyone apparently turned a blind eye: At V.A. Hospital, a Rogue Cancer Unit.

According to investigators, government officials and public records, the team --led by Dr. Gary D. Kao -- operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years -- and then kept quiet about it.

We're talking about doctors implanting radioactive seeds into your body to attack the cancer. Except these guys put them in the wrong place -- into perfectly healthy organs. And then basically fudged the paperwork to hide their mistakes. Repeatedly.

The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which the safeguards -- like peer review, training, and, um, properly functioning equipment -- that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care did not work, or simply weren't enforced.

According to the article, Dr. Kao is responsible for most of the errors, though his lawyer says that the Times' account of his role is "false." In any case, he reportedly no longer works at the veterans' hospital, and would not be allowed to return. Yeah, you think?