Sunday, September 8, 2013

Sunday Globe Special: Compounding Conundrum

"Pain, questions linger, a year after meningitis outbreak; 19 more have died since January" by Kay Lazar |  Globe Staff,  September 08, 2013

Across the United States, people like Devena Moore are grappling with a cascade of baffling and often debilitating illnesses, the legacy of tainted pain injections made at a Framingham specialty pharmacy. Long after New England Compounding Center shut down last October and headlines faded, many of the patients report they are still suffering unexplained blistering and rashes, blurred vision, headaches, trouble thinking, and strokes. They wonder when — or if — they will ever feel better.

Nearly 14,000 people in 20 states received the bad shots last summer and early fall, and federal regulators say 750 came down with fungal meningitis and other infections. Sixty-four of the patients have died — 19 since January — though it’s not known how many of the deaths were directly attributable to the fungal infections.

Some physicians are treating patients who weren’t diagnosed with fungal infections until five, six — even eight — months after they received the tainted steroids. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to sort out whether the infections in these cases took months to incubate, or whether the patients were unable to get a proper diagnosis before then.

The lingering illnesses come against a backdrop of partisan battles in Congress that have blocked passage of legislation to tighten federal oversight of speciality pharmacies like New England Compounding, leaving patients vulnerable to more outbreaks tied to contaminated drugs from such pharmacies, which mix their own medications and are mostly regulated by states.

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