The Worst Medical Mistakes in History...

medicine has saved lives cured diseases and pushed the limits of what's possible medical breakthroughs have largely driven the dramatic increase in human life expectancy and improved the quality of life that many of us enjoy today we live in a glittering age of medical ingenuity but when things go wrong they can go horribly horrifyingly wrong while the overall arc of medical evolution has been immensely impressive history also records an astonishing array of medical mistakes that send shivers down the spine from once revered technologies that turned catastrophically wrong to drugs that ruined lives and killed thousands these

stories can instill a healthy fear of hospitals in even the most trusting among us when X-rays were first discovered they seemed like something straight out of science fiction a way to see inside the human body without making a single incision it was nothing short of miraculous doctors and scientists eagerly experimented with this new technology often subjecting patients to hours of radiation exposure in the quest for the perfect image the one problem they had no idea what they were really dealing with at the time radiation safety protocols didn't exist dentists routinely x-rayed their patients teeth simply

because they could in one bizarre twist some shoe stores installed X-ray machines so customers could watch the bones in their feet move as they tried on new shoes some doctors even believed that radiation exposure offered health benefits using X-ray machines to treat everything from acne and arthritis to hair loss no one stopped to consider the damage all that radiation might be inflicting on the body it wasn't until years later that the horrifying consequences became clear patients who'd undergone frequent X-rays began developing unusual burns and sores some experienced skin peeling away in layers while others were

diagnosed with aggressive cancers even the pioneers of this breakthrough radiologists doctors and technicians fell victim their hands constantly exposed to radiation developed blackened ulcers rotted away and in many cases had to be amputated one of the most tragic cases was that of Clarence Deli a technician who worked closely with Thomas Edison deli spent years experimenting with X-rays unaware that each exposure was slowly poisoning him his hands disintegrated first forcing doctors to amputate them but by then cancer had already spread he eventually died after enduring years of agonizing pain a casualty of his own discoveries horrified

by Dali's fate Edison abandoned X-ray research altogether when later asked about the ordeal he curtly remarked "Don't talk to me about X-rays i'm afraid of them." Unfortunately his apprehension came too late for those who had already paid the [Music] price imagine waking up with a sore throat nothing serious just a minor infection that makes swallowing difficult today you might simply take some antibiotics and get some rest but in 1799 medical wisdom prescribed a drastically different remedy draining nearly half your blood that was the fate of George Washington the hero of the War of Independence and

the United States's first president in December of that year Washington developed what was likely a severe case of strep throat as his condition worsened and his throat swelled to the point of obstructing his breathing his doctors relying on the best medical practices of the time believed that his body needed to be purged of its bad humors so they did what they were trained to do they bled him over the span of 10 hours Washington was bled four times losing nearly 40% of his total blood volume to compound matters his doctors administered a mercury-braced laxative and

attempted to induce vomiting further depleting his remaining strength instead of fighting the infection his body was plunged into complete shock the man who had led a revolution endured brutal winters and helped shape a nation was now fading away not from the illness itself but from the treatment as he lay dying Washington reportedly murmured "I die hard but I am not afraid to go." Perhaps he realized that every passing minute every pint of blood lost was drawing him inexurably closer to the inevitable for nearly 2,000 years bloodletting was the treatment of choice for almost every ailment

fevers headaches even mental illness it wasn't until the late 19th century that doctors finally accepted what now seems obvious they weren't curing patients they were killing them for George Washington that realization came far too late mental health issues are rapidly emerging as the defining elements of our age yet conditions like anxiety and depression have plagued humanity for as long as we have existed we simply understood them in really different ways today you might be prescribed anti-depressants or granted some time off work however in the mid- 20th century you might have left the doctor's office with

part of your brain missing this grim reality was all too common for thousands of patients caught up in the labbotomy craze between the 1930s and early 1950s and at the forefront of this madness was Dr walter Freriedman the origins of labbotomy date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries a time when medical science was still grappling with the complexities of mental illness psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia severe depression and bipolar disorder were poorly understood and many patients were confined to overcrowded asylums with little hope of recovery with no effective treatments doctors began seeking drastic

solutions the first labbotoy-ike procedure was performed in 1890 by Swiss psychiatrist Gotaly Burkhart who removed sections of the brains of six psychiatric patients in an attempt to alleviate their symptoms the results were mixed some patients became docsile while others suffered severe cognitive impairments or even died the medical community largely dismissed his work as far too dangerous it wasn't until the 1930s that the concept resurfaced thanks to Portuguese neurologist Antonio Agaz Mones who refined the technique by severing the connections between the preffrontal cortex and the rest of the brain mones believed that overactive neural circuits were

at the root of mental illness and that cutting these connections would provide relief although his early patients often became emotionally detached or listless the procedure began to gain traction and this brings us to Dr for Walter Freeman a neurosurgeon with the showmanship of a carnival barker like Monis Freeman believed that mental illness could be cured by severing the connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex effectively rewiring the mind his preferred method however was so crude and horrifying that it sounds like something out of a horror film jamming an icepic through the eye socket and hammering it

into the brain freeman called his procedure the transorbital labbotomy it required no traditional surgical tools or sterile operating rooms just an electric shock to knock the patient out a thin metal pick inserted through the upper eyelid and a few swift taps of a hammer the idea was that by scrambling the neural pathways in the frontal lobe the patients would be freed from their emotional distress in reality they were being silenced and erased labbotomized into submission freeman personally performed over 4,000 labbotoies often in an assemblyline fashion as he moved from one patient to the next with

chilling efficiency he even took his gruesome show on the road in a traveling van that he proudly dubbed the Labbotomobile housewives veterans troubled teenagers no one was safe from his enthusiasm if someone seemed too emotional rebellious or simply inconvenient Freeman had a single horrifying solution hammer away at their brain until they were no longer a problem one of his most infamous cases involved Rosemary Kennedy the sister of John F kennedy a bright young woman with mild learning difficulties Rosemary was seen as a liability in a family obsessed with image and perfection at 23 she was

subjected to a labbotomy at Freeman's hands when she awoke she could barely speak once lively and full of potential she was now trapped in a near vegetative state for the rest of her life by the 1950s psychiatric drugs like thorazine had replaced labbotoies and Freeman's gruesome experiments were finally recognized for what they were medical butchery masquerading as progress but for thousands of people it was too late wasn't it their personalities had been wiped away their memories erased their lives irreparably shattered in the early 1950s polio was one of the most feared diseases in the world

it struck without warning leaving thousands of children paralyzed or dead each year entire communities lived in constant fear avoiding swimming pools public gatherings even playgrounds to reduce the risk of infection then in 1955 a breakthrough changed everything dr jonas Sulk's polio vaccine was declared safe and effective a medical miracle that promised to eradicate the disease parents lined up eagerly to have their children vaccinated believing they were protecting them from a lifetime of disability but what was meant to be a triumph quickly turned into a nightmare one of the companies manufacturing the vaccine Cutter Laboratories made

a catastrophic mistake the vaccine was supposed to contain a dead form of the virus but instead a batch left the factory contaminated with live fully active polio virus unaware of the danger doctors across the US injected tens of thousands of children with what should have been life-saving medicine instead they unwittingly gave them the very disease they sought to prevent the results were devastating nearly 40,000 children developed polio while many experienced only mild symptoms 200 were left permanently paralyzed and 10 died the nation was in shock a vaccine intended to protect had instead taken lives the

medical community scrambled to understand what had gone wrong cutter Laboratory's failure to properly inactivate the virus was to blame but the deeper issue lay in the government's rushed rollout of the vaccine which allowed safety protocols to be dangerously lax as a result the incident spurred the implementation of stricter regulations on vaccine production improved safety testing and a more rigorous oversight process to ensure nothing like it would ever happen again cutter Laboratories faced dozens of lawsuits from affected families the most significant one God's Danker and Cutter Laboratories became a landmark in product liability law the court

ruled that Cutter Laboratories was liable for the harm caused even though they had followed government safety protocols based on the strict liability principle which holds that companies are responsible for defective products regardless of proven negligence the jury awarded damages to the victims setting a legal precedent that would influence future liability laws for pharmaceutical companies despite these lawsuits and ensuing public condemnation Carter Laboratories didn't shut down instead it settled most cases out of court although the financial damage was severe it did not result in bankruptcy however the scandal permanently tarnished Carter's reputation and the company eventually

ceased vaccine production despite this tragedy the polio vaccine went on to eradicate the disease in most of the world sparing millions from paralysis and death however for the families affected by the Cutter incident no amount of progress could undo the damage their children had suffered not from the disease but from human error staying in the 1950s morning sickness was a miserable but unavoidable part of pregnancy many women struggled through nausea and vomiting with little relief as doctors had little to offer beyond vague advice to rest and eat bland foods then theolyomide came along a new

drug marketed as a safe effective solution for expectant mothers it promised to eliminate morning sickness without any harmful side effects doctors in 46 different countries prescribed it widely and women took it with confidence believing they were protecting their unborn children from the discomfort of early pregnancy but when those babies were born it became shockingly clear that something had gone horribly wrong thousands of infants entered the world with severe lifealtering birth defects many were born with missing or malformed limbs their arms and legs stunned into flipper-like extensions others suffered from malformed organs missing ears and underdeveloped

eyes some newborns struggled to breathe their tiny bodies unable to function properly in fact 40% of those affected died within days or weeks of birth the most shocking part of this appalling story is that at the time drug companies were not required to test medications on pregnant women or even on pregnant animals before releasing them to the market theomide was distributed widely before anyone realized its devastating effects by the time the truth came out over 10,000 babies worldwide had been affected and families were left shattered by a tragedy that they never saw coming subsequent studies

revealed that the affected fetuses differently depending on when the mother took it differences of just a few days could have enormous consequences if taken on the 20th day of pregnancy it caused central brain damage on day 21 it would damage the eyes day 22 the ears and face day 24 the arms and legs remarkably theomide would not harm the fetus if taken after 42 days of gestation public outrage was of course immediate and governments had no choice but to act theolyomide was pulled from the shelves and new strict drug testing laws were introduced for the

first time pharmaceutical companies were required to test medications on pregnant animals before approving them for human use and regulatory agencies imposed much stricter oversight on drug safety many survivors grew up facing lifelong medical complications and disabilities living reminders of a medical catastrophe that should never have happened what was meant to be a gift to mothers had instead become one of the greatest pharmaceutical disasters of the 20th century contraceptives are supposed to give women control of their bodies not destroy them yet in the 1970s a device called the Daen Shield turned birth control into a medical

catastrophe marketed as a safe long-term interuterine device it was promoted as an easy effective alternative to the pill women trusted it doctors recommended it but what they didn't know was that this device would leave thousands of them with permanent lifealtering damage the problem lay in its design the Dalcon shield featured a multifilament string a characteristic that instead of protecting women became a highway for bacteria infection spread rapidly moving from the uterus into the bloodstream women who had been perfectly healthy before suffered from excruciating pelvic pain high fevers and relentless infections that refused to abate many

developed severe pelvic inflammatory disease leading to infertility miscarriages and in some cases still births others were hospitalized with septic shock their bodies overwhelmed by infection tragically some never made it out alive doctors were baffled women kept showing up with the same agonizing symptoms yet for years no one suspected their birth control was to blame by the time the truth was uncovered the damage was already done more than 300,000 lawsuits were filed against ah Robbins the company behind the device the scandal became one of the largest medical liability cases in history ultimately forcing the company into

bankruptcy as victims sought justice the Dowin Shield disaster changed medical safety laws forever in its wake the FDA tightened regulations on medical device testing approval and oversight ensuring that future contraceptives would undergo far more rigorous safety trials for centuries doctors believed they had discovered a miracle cure a substance capable of purging the body of illness and restoring health that cure was mercury a toxic heavy metal that in reality did farther harm than good mercury was prescribed for nearly every ailment from skin conditions and depression to digestive issues and life-threatening infections but the treatment was often

worse than the disease itself the logic behind its use was pretty straightforward mercury induced heavy sweating vomiting and diarrhea which doctors mistakenly interpreted as evidence that the body was expelling toxins in reality patients were being systematically poisoned this was nowhere more apparent than in the treatment of syphilis one of the most feared diseases of the pre- antibiotic era patients were slathered in mercury ointments given mercury pills or exposed to mercury vapors in a desperate attempt to cure the infection the old saying "A night with Venus a lifetime with mercury wasn't just a warning about the

dangers of syphilis it was a grim reminder that the treatment could be just as deadly as the disease long-term mercury exposure led to horrific side effects patients suffered severe neurological damage developing uncontrollable tremors memory loss and terrifying hallucinations their teeth fell out their skin blackened and many experienced kidney failure seizures and eventual death even some of history's greatest minds may have been affected sir Isaac Newton for example exhibited classic signs of mercury poisoning in his later years likely due to his alchemical experiments it wasn't until the 20th century that the medical world finally realized what

should have been obvious all along mercury was killing people not curing them by that time countless patients had suffered slow agonizing deaths in the name of medicine yet despite its wellocumented toxicity mercury still lingers in some parts of the world it can be found in certain traditional medicines skin lightening creams and even old dental fillings a toxic relic of one of history's greatest medical mistakes what was once hailed as a cure all is now remembered as a deadly reminder of how little doctors understood about the human body 1980s marked the rise of one of the

deadliest pandemics in modern history HIV AIDS at first the disease was misunderstood shrouded in stigma and blamed solely on high-risisk groups such as introvenous drug users and the gay community however for thousands of unsuspecting people HIV wasn't contracted through sex or drug use it was injected straight into their veins at the time blood banks had no reliable screening methods for HIV and the consequences were devastating hemophiliacs individuals who relied on regular blood transfusions due to a genetic blood clotting disorder became unknowing victims of the epidemic without realizing it they received HIV contaminated blood every time

they underwent treatment the numbers were staggering more than 10,000 hemophiliacs in the US alone were infected with tens of thousands more worldwide and it wasn't just hemophiliacs surgical patients and anyone in need of a transfusion were at risk one of the most well-known victims was Ron White a young hemophiliac from Indiana diagnosed with HIV after receiving a tainted blood transfusion white was only 13 when he learned he had the virus and instead of receiving compassion he faced discrimination and was banned from attending school due to unfounded fears of the contagion he became a national figure

in the fight for AIDS awareness advocating for education and policy changes until his death aged just 18 his story helped shift public perception but by then the damage had already been done for thousands of others the contaminated blood scandal remains one of the darkest moments in medical history a chilling example of how inaction negligence and corporate greed can cost thousands of lives and look medicine's come a long way today we trust our doctors our treatments and our vaccines yet history has shown us that even the best intentions can lead to disaster from deadly cures to

reckless mistakes and catastrophic oversightes these medical mistakes were not mere accidents they were tragedies that forever altered thousands of lives some of these failures forced change leading to safer drugs stricter regulations and improved medical practices but for the victims the cost was a lifetime of pain or even death science and medicine they're never perfect progress always comes with a price although human medical knowledge is soaring today history reminds us that there have been some truly catastrophic missteps along the way thank you for watching [Music]