It seems that news of a death related to Strax Rejuvenation in south Florida is not surprising news. The most recent happenings, though, are quite surprising. Even for someone very familiar with the very sketchy track record of Strax Rejuvenation when it comes to patient safety and patient deaths. Diana Gonzalez, health reporter for NBC6 in south Florida, reported one of the most recent deaths of a patient related to Strax Rejuvenation. Here is a link to the story:
Given the history of the last few years, another death of this nature is not altogether surprising. What is surprising, even shocking, is that this death is only one out of three that have occurred in the last few weeks. That’s three deaths of patients associated with Strax Rejuvenation in the last few weeks. Almost as shocking is that only the story of Idell Frazer made the news. The tragic loss of Ms. Frazer was well covered by Diana Gonzalez, however, nothing has been reported on the other two deaths. How is it that the two other souls were not worthy of coverage? And how many more Strax related deaths have there been over the years that were never made known to the public.
One answer is that not all Strax related deaths happen on their premises. It is probably easier to keep such a tragic event quiet and out of the news if they don’t have to call an ambulance to the center itself. If a patient dies in the immediate post-operative period (the first few weeks after surgery) it is considered a complication of surgery. When calculating mortality rates these deaths would be included, even if they never made the news. And even if they didn’t actually happen during surgery or inside the walls of Strax Rejuvenation.
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will be familiar with my two previous articles about Strax Rejuvenation and their death rates. Here are the links to those stories:
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As you can see, giving Strax Rejuvenation a tremendous benefit of the doubt still arrives at a shocking mortality rate. If we re-examine the death rates including the most recent additions the numbers get even more alarming. Another year has passed so the total number of procedures will be higher. If we use Strax Rejuvenation’s own numbers, 29,000 procedures performed over eight years, that would add up to exactly 14,500 procedures performed over four years. I am aware of eight patient deaths related to Strax Rejuvenation in the last four years. That adds up to a death rate of 1 in 1813 cases. That’s shockingly TWENTY EIGHT TIMES the published mortality rate of 1 in 51,459 cases (American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, ASAPS). That means that in the time it would take to have a single death in a surgery center with the numbers published by ASAPS, twenty eight people would have died at Strax Rejuevantion.
If you have a friend that has been involved in eight car accidents in the last four years, how would you feel about letting that person drive your children around? Probably not too comfortable. Now imagine that all of those accidents included a fatality. You would probably sooner have your kids walk than ride in that car. The risk of a day to day car ride is much lower than having surgery. How many more deaths will it take to make everyone think twice about having surgery at Strax Rejuvenation? I would hope the answer is zero. Maybe the next death won’t be a patient, maybe it will be the death of Strax Rejuvenation.
