FARK.com: (653751) Real-life bionic man from 1980's now has "a maze of broken, corroding, electrical wires embedded in his paralyzed legs, suffering infections and needing operations every few months"; sues government for $5 million

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		Real-life bionic man from 1980's now has "a maze of broken, corroding, electrical wires embedded in his paralyzed legs, suffering infections and needing operations every few months"; sues government for $5 million (azcentral.com)		85
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Vman		2003-09-17 04:05:04 PM

According to teh agreement this seems open and shut. I would however defer to the doctor that only the infected wires be removed. It sounds like they are so small talking them all out at once would cause more harm then good.

Brennan-Monster		2003-09-17 04:06:21 PM

Yet again, our government fails to serve its cyborg citizens! How many rusting corpses must litter our streets and jam our recycling centers before this country says, "Enough!"?

shariambre		2003-09-17 04:06:38 PM

I bet he does a mean electric slide!
/had to join in

Son of Thunder		2003-09-17 04:08:25 PM

Winter's allegations that he is a victim of research run amok

"Oh, beware the other head of Science, Arthur! It bites!"

TheMatt		2003-09-17 04:09:12 PM

Big_Bad_Dad: Ohm an, I gauss'ed someone would do that pun. It siemens to me that you should keep trying, weber or not you want to.

Ruffian		2003-09-17 04:13:13 PM

Do you think there are really robots living among us?
No. We don't have the technology.

lincoln_log_in_me_sock_drawer		2003-09-17 04:13:35 PM

Screw bionics -- it's 2003, where the hell is my rocket pack?

/rocka-who?

davel23		2003-09-17 04:15:02 PM

J777D

Paralyzed at 17, Winter, like many other participants in VA-sponsored research, is not a veteran.

As a strong, athletic 21-year-old who in high school baseball had ranked as one of Ohio's best pitchers, Winter dreamed of someday walking again. He signed up for the research program in 1983.

huh?

I was a little confused by this at first as well. What they're saying is that Winter was paralyzed at the age of 17, and as a strong, athletic (yet paralyzed) 21-year-old he signed up for the program. They just added that he was a good pitcher in high school as part of the second paragraph. Obviously, that was before he was 17.

wantedman		2003-09-17 04:15:44 PM

luckycarbon
Well, when you go into the army, you're going to have to expect bullets.

However, if you RTFA, you'd realize the doctors knew the wires were getting broken and lodged into his mucles, and they continued to inject him with more and more to make sure he was still 'working'.

Anyone who cared for the safty of said individual, should have stopped after they realized that the wires were stuck in him, unremovable without damaging the muscles. Instead, they coninued to inject him with wires, to show him off to their friends.

On a side note, I wonder if you can attach a refigerator magnet to his head...

ChadM89		2003-09-17 04:16:53 PM

Forget rocket packs. Where the hell is my bubble car?!?!

No Such Agency		2003-09-17 04:17:15 PM

Anyone else read this one?

Yamara		2003-09-17 04:18:45 PM

Godfrey
I'm just waiting for ... someone trying to prove it was Bush's and/or Clinton's fault, and then the thread will be complete.

But this happened in the eighties... so...

IT'S REAGAN'S FAULT!!!

/berke is back in the biz!

Son of Thunder		2003-09-17 04:20:11 PM

Winter's allegations that he is a victim of research run amok

Okay, I have to throw in one more Tick quote.

"It is done."
"Oh, the heavens will condemn us for what we have wrought this day."
"Yes, but morality's lease has run out, and science has been given the keys to the apartment!"

TheMatt		2003-09-17 04:26:05 PM

Son of Thunder:

"I liked you better without it."

El_Presdente		2003-09-17 04:28:45 PM

Ninety-nine percent of Internet users already have their browsers set to accept cookies.

I love how they throw this little tidbit in, kinda like "everybody else is doing it, so why aren't you, moron?"

b1t r0t		2003-09-17 04:48:36 PM

I for one welcome our new cyborg overlords.

(If only the guy had sued for $6 million, then we could have used the IRONIC tag!)

rrtt22		2003-09-17 04:50:53 PM

Diogenes

The mobile repair station brings back a lot of memories. I think I still have that somewhere in the attic.

Andorion		2003-09-17 04:51:06 PM

J777D, I was confused too! davel23, thanks for the explanation!!

~Berj

edr8		2003-09-17 04:58:37 PM

Where are the flying cars?

babelfitch		2003-09-17 05:13:10 PM

and the jet packs? commuting to work on the moon?

Godfrey		2003-09-17 05:15:08 PM

Yamara writes: But this happened in the eighties... so... IT'S REAGAN'S FAULT!!!

Since when has chronology ever stopped kneejerk liberals/conservatives from blaming things on Bush or Clinton, respectively?

Coelacanth		2003-09-17 05:15:42 PM

Never, ever trust the VA.

Sophistimucated		2003-09-17 05:19:33 PM

"RegDunlop:
Oh just great....now who am I gonna get to fight bigfoot and Maskatron?
/Oscar Goldman"

Yeah, and what about DeathProbes I and II? I think that's what they were called, kinda looked like golf carts with frickin' lasers on their roofs.

DrLearned		2003-09-17 05:40:00 PM

$5 million? What, is that depreciation?

Homer_J_Fong		2003-09-17 05:44:59 PM

Klaatu Barada Nikto

Bung_Howdy		2003-09-17 05:45:40 PM

Never, ever volunteer. Period-

Pathighgate		2003-09-17 06:15:32 PM

Yeah, piss off, that's like signing up for the army and then suing when you get shot in combat.

No, it's sort of like signing up for the army and then suing when the VA refuses to fix your broken leg that was wounded in combat.

When he agreed to let the VA break him. The VA promised to fix him if it didn't work out. The VA has no decided not to. The VA owes him.

hilleh		2003-09-17 07:46:47 PM

But...but...BIONICS = INVINCIBLE!!!

QualityPants		2003-09-17 08:20:48 PM

No real surprise here, the whole VA system is a farking joke.

NuckleheadEd		2003-09-17 08:40:48 PM

Okay, maybe I'm the only one, but... this deserves the ironic tag.

After all, this guy's name is Steve Winter.

The bionic woman's name? Jamie Summers.

/old enough to know better.

NuckleheadEd		2003-09-17 08:41:53 PM

And just for kicks, the $6 millon man's name was Steve Austin.

persephone71		2003-09-17 09:22:08 PM

AHA!
The show with the robot girl Vicki was Small Wonder!!
I saw that pic this afternoon and sent my brain scrambling for the name of it, to no avail. Then just now, as I was sending someone the url, the theme song popped into my head.

Weird how that happens.. someone should do a study on that phenomenon (translation: I should have my head examined)

As for the guy, yeah I think he has a valid claim. Among other things, since when does 'several' = almost 200?? Isn't the technical term for that 'a whole shiatload'? I hope he wins

Cuddles_in_KY		2003-09-17 10:01:35 PM

As someone who has a bio-tech (not bionic) knee replacement, I know what the poor guy is going through. When they were replacing my knee, the doctor clipped the main nerve bundle, and I have no feeling from my thigh down to my foot. But, my knee (installed in 1986, and upgraded at various times since) hasn't failed yet. :)

co-conspirator		2003-09-17 10:36:00 PM

No real surprise here, the whole VA system is a farking joke.

As a researcher in the VA, I'd like to correct you: only 90% is, and research is mostly NOT in that 90%. You wouldn't believe the assloads of legal forms upon legal forms we have to constantly update again and again because of shiat like what happened in the Gait Lab and elsewhere (especially outside of the VA system).

For what it's worth, many of the people who were involved in the original program no longer run that lab. How do I know? At this moment, I'm sitting just a few feet away from someone who did her Masters' research in that lab. And I knew several other people who work/worked there. The lab is just a few floors down from my lab.

Also, for what it's worth, there are MANY people who never had problems with the electrodes. The article doesn't mention it, but the surgeon always tries to remove the wires but can not get every fragment because of how fine the wire is, and the natural biological process by which the body attaches and grows to the wire. In most of the subjects the remaining pieces safely encapsulate over time. However in his case they didn't.

Now I'm not completely defending this; there was a lot of short-sighted let's-go-real-fast when this program started (because it seemed like HUGE results were going to be gained very quickly and also because the researchers truly wanted to help a lot of people -- which they did), but this article is purely one-sided.

And finally, the whole VA research program may be doomed, anyway. The current political-appointee head of research is cluelessly slashing away at the program, trying to turn it into nothing more than a load of touchy-feely psycho-social "outcome studies." But we shouldn't feel especially mistreated, since all of science is becoming politically driven to the point where science policy is not being decided by scientists. And in the case where scientists are involved, they are being selected by their politics, not their merit. This guarantees that only one viewpoint is being heard.

shiat, now I'm all depressed again.