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A detailed study of the Therac-25 radiation overdose accidents. Rare but easily avoided software bugs in the Therac-25 cancer treatment machine caused six accidents and three deaths. Additionally, many of the stakeholders contributed to the problem through their action or inaction. The fact that the machine was in service for 3 years without error, yet then killed 3 people in two years, gives an interesting insight into how we define "reliable". This case provides an interesting focus for a debate on reliability, dependency on IT, and responsibility for failures. These pages contain a HUGE amount of detail and so I would recommend summarising them for students - especially ESL students. However, if this is done a lively debate can definitely be had.