In 1996, Mounira Khoury, Leslie Burnett and Mark A Mackay reported:
Error rates in Australian pathology laboratories vary widely, but may be as high as 46% for all specimens in some laboratories.
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Error rates in Australian chemical pathology laboratories, Khoury et al, MJA 1996; 165: 128-130
In an editorial referring to the above article, in the same issue of MJA, Bryant, reference AA01 commented :
If these findings are extrapolated to all laboratory activity in Australia, errors must abound in alarming numbers.
and
Australian pathology laboratories have been slow to adopt total quality improvement processes.
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In their book, Sally M. Pacholok and Jeffrey J. Stuart expose the magnitude of the problem of misdiagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency. According to Bernard Rimland, PhD, Director, Autism Institute:
Pacholok and Stuart expose a major health-care scandal: the failure to identify and treat hundreds of thousands of patients who suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency. |
Could It Be B12? An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses, Linden Publishing; Second edition (January 26, 2011)
According to Oh and Brown:
use of a low serum vitamin B12 level as the sole means of diagnosis may miss up to one half of patients with actual tissue B12 deficiency. |
Vitamin B12 Deficiency, Oh and Brown, Am Fam Physician 2003;67:979-86,993-4.
In 2006, S.N. Wickramasinghe reported:
The accuracy of folate assays and particularly of fully-automated red cell folate assays is questionable. The results obtained depend on the assay method -
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Diagnosis of megaloblastic anaemias, S.N. Wickramasinghe, Blood Rev. 2006 Nov;20(6):299-318l
In 2007, Chiang et al concluded, in a poster presentation to the AACB reported:
Our study across 3 platforms indicate that many red cell folate results in Auatralia may be incorrect and misleading
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Red Cell Folate recovery varies inversely with Haematocrit, C Y Chiang et al |