51ÊÓƵ

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday it would boost employee drug testing and inspections amid rising cases of opioid theft and missing prescriptions, acknowledging gaps that had allowed thousands of doctors, nurses and other staff to go unchecked for signs of illicit drug use. (Yen, 2/27)

A military veteran with terminal prostate cancer survived long enough to get his day in court Monday, quietly observing opening arguments in a $50 million lawsuit filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs for alleged negligence. Steven Cooper, 45,  alleges that a VA nurse practitioner who examined him in late 2011 failed to order a blood test or make a specialist referral that could have detected the disease early, before it became incurable. (Wagner, 2/27)

A lawyer for a military veteran opened a medical-negligence trial Monday by saying his client’s now-terminal prostate cancer would have been curable had the Veterans Administration hospital in Phoenix diagnosed it sooner. Attorneys defending the Veterans Administration countered that a nurse practitioner involved in the case of Steven Harold Cooper complied with the applicable standard of care and the then-40-year-old Cooper was not considered to be at risk from prostate cancer at the time of his first appointment. (Billeaud, 2/27)