A drug-addicted Australian doctor who pleaded guilty to negligently infecting 55 patients with hepatitis C at a Melbourne birth control clinic was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years imprisonment. The court was told anesthetist James Peters, 63, would inject himself with the drug fentanyl, a narcotic pain reliever and tranquillizer, before using the same syringe to administer the drug to his patients.Peters, who can expect to serve 10 years of his sentence, had been a drug addict for 18 years and was married to a heroin addict.
Hepatitis C, for which no vaccine is available, is an infectious disease spread by blood-to-blood contact and can lead to liver failure.
Most sufferers are intravenous drug users who contract the disease by sharing needles.
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