Workers Given Flu Shots With Used Needles

Nineteen employees at Time Inc.’s Washington bureau were given flu shots with needles used more than once and were told this week to be tested for the AIDS virus and other illnesses.

Dan Goodgame, chief of Time’s Washington bureau, was advising staffers to “err on the side of caution” in getting tests for HIV, hepatitis B and any other disease their doctors felt necessary, the Washington Post reported Friday.

“Let’s just say there’s a lot of blood work going on here now,” a reporter told the Post. The staffers were given flu shots at their office two weeks ago. At the time, several say they thought they noticed Dr. Wesley Oler merely wiping off needles with cotton and alcohol instead of getting a new one for each shot. That has been an unacceptable medical practice for years.

When Oler left, the staffers compared their observations and complained to management.

“In retrospect it was not a wise judgment,” Oler, 75, said Friday.