A cluster of hepatitis C infections broke out at a New Taipei Banqiao clinic. Doctors reveal the three unhelpful aspects of "nutritional injections"

[Health Channel/Comprehensive Report] A cluster of hepatitis C infections occurred in a clinic in Banqiao, New Taipei. The CDC urgently requested patients who had received "injections" at the clinic within a specific time period to undergo examination. The cause was suspected to be "nutritional injections" given to patients by the clinic, resulting in 11 people suspected of being infected with hepatitis C.

Former cardiologist Xie Anmin believes that this incident has exposed that our world-famous health insurance system still has some hidden problems and flaws. For the sake of national health, problems must be discovered and flaws should be made up for. At the same time, Xie Anmin raised doubts, "I wonder how many patients the clinic sees every day, and how many of them do the doctors want them to take nutritional injections?"

Xie Anmin said that an infusion of 500 to 1,000 c.c. in the clinic only provides 25 to 50 grams of glucose (100 to 200 calories). The added water-soluble vitamins (mostly B group) may be excreted in less than a day. Other "nutrients" are also quickly metabolized or excreted, and not much is actually retained in the body and will not last long. It can be said that taking "nutritional injections" in the clinic will not only make the doctor's wallet a little fatter, but it will not be beneficial to the patient or society.

The phrase "Primum non nocere" (First, do no harm) is considered the core spirit of the Hippocratic Oath, the father of ancient Greek medicine. Physicians should prioritize weighing the potential risks and side effects of any treatment against its benefits. If the risk of harm outweighs the benefits of an intervention, choose to do nothing or take a gentler approach. These 11 patients unfortunately contracted iatrogenic hepatitis C because of the controversial efficacy and necessity of "nutritional injections", which is really a big deal. Both doctors and clinics have seriously violated the basic principle of "do no harm."

What is even more puzzling is that the clinic requires these patients to be negative for hepatitis C before they receive nutritional injections before they can say that their hepatitis C is caused by the clinic's nutritional injections. Unless those patients have drawn enough blood before taking nutritional injections, have not used it and kept it well, they can go back and test for liver C. Otherwise this is just an impossible challenge. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the RNA sequences of the hepatitis C viruses in these patients are highly identical, which is enough to prove that the viruses in these people came from this clinic.

In Taiwan, the practice of intravenous injection in clinics has been around for a long time and is quite popular. It has even created an incorrect medical culture where doctors want to inject and patients often want doctors to inject. Decades have passed, and our progress in this area has only progressed from reusable syringes and needles to disposable equipment; from injecting dozens of c.c. to injecting hundreds to a thousand c.c. Xie Anmin believes that this incident has brought up another worrying issue: whether some private clinics have done a good job in safety and supervision, especially in preventing infections.