States Face Huge Task In Tracking Meningitis-Tainted Drugs

An anonymous reader writes "Confronted with a growing meningitis scare, states are coming under enormous pressure to meet federal requests that they contact more than 1,000 hospitals and clinics that received any injectable drugs from the company at the center of the deadly outbreak."

Comments

Get rid of the FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of the FDA and let the free market sort this out.

Scope of the outbreak

[girlintraining]

First, I have a relative who received an injection at one of the clinics, and I can speak firsthand to what's going on right now.

This article talks about the tracking problem. Well, it's a problem because nobody knows which batches were infected; The lead time on these things can be weeks or months before there's confirmation of a pathogen. By that time, there's potentially hundreds of infected batches out there. We still don't know (and likely won't for up to a year) which batches tested positive. It could be just a one off -- someone missed a sterilization step in a single batch, and the rest are fine. What's happening right now is an abundance of caution approach. They're recalling everything and testing everyone because we don't know exactly where the problem started and ended.

Also, a lot of patients potentially infected haven't been contacted yet and may never be because of out of date or incorrect contact information. Here, the health department has been tasked with contacting patients -- the clinic hasn't reached out at all. When I heard about this on the news, I called her and we went down to ER and got things sorted (tested negative), but the "Contact the patient" step isn't happening for a lot of people.

And lastly, even when they are contacted, and are tested, some of these patients may have already had the infection cleared due to unrelated treatment. My relative, for example, was put on antibiotics for an unrelated condition not long after the injection, and indicated to the doctors symptoms similar to what they were looking for but they cleared up prior to testing. So that data point is lost: They don't know whether the batch used on that patient was a positive now. And given the low rates of patient return and contacting, that one data point could represent hundreds of patients that need to be put on the priority list for contacting.

By far the biggest problem here is a lack of resources and accurate information. It's not that they're incompetent, or that procedures weren't followed (though both could be true)... but the response has been botched because there just aren't enough people to do the leg work. And don't forget: Whether it's their fault or not, you're still the one being billed. A lot of people don't want to eat their deductible or pay for a hospital visit or testing out of pocket (or copay), unless they know there's a problem. Wouldn't be a problem with nationalized healthcare, but with privatized healthcare "preventative medicine" is practically a swear word.

Re:Scope of the outbreak

[girlintraining]

Your post sounded plausible until the last paragraph. Nobody would be billed for getting checked if they received one of these injections. Plus if your relative was given antibiotics the doctor must have had a reason for doing so, a reason as in a lab test that showed that he/she had some kind of an infection. So their record would show what caused the infection.

Lulz. First, my relative got a bill. I've seen it, it's real. Hell, I got a bill for a rape kit once... I didn't pay. A family who's kid was run over by a police car (officer was 100% at fault) was billed for the repair of the dent to the car. That's an argument you just aren't going to win, man. Second, labs don't always test for the bacteria. Take a bladder infection -- if they see red blood cells, that's confirmation of a bladder infection and they prescribe a generic antibiotic. They may or may not send the urine off for a more detailed analysis, depending on severity of symptoms etc. Not every sample is checked for every thing -- this isn't CSI: Your Healthcare Plan.