Published October 28, 2012
INDIANAPOLIS – State health officials knew six
clinics in Indiana had received a recalled back pain medication linked to an
outbreak of fungal meningitis a week before they notified the public, according
to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
A series of emails obtained Friday through an AP public records request
indicate officials at the Indiana State Department of Health were racing to keep
up with an evolving picture as the disease rapidly spread.
"A lot of new information was coming in regularly over the weekend of Sept.
29 and 30 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the situation
began to take shape," Amy Reel, a spokeswoman for the state health agency, told
The Associated Press.
"This is a fast breaking and fluid situation," Randy Snyder, acute care
director for the agency, told other state health officials in an Oct. 3
email.
The emails indicate the CDC informed officials at the Indiana health agency
on the night of Sept. 28 it was investigating a cluster of fungal meningitis
cases in Tennessee and North Carolina that it suspected were connected with
injections of a contaminated steroid. An email attachment identified the six
Indiana health facilities that were known to have received the suspected
medication from a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts.
The CDC email urged state health agencies to contact clinics that received
the tainted steroid and monitor their patients for signs of meningitis symptoms.
The Indiana clinics that received the medication were located in Elkhart,
Evansville, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Terre Haute and Columbus.
Snyder told officials in an email Sept. 29 that he had received no reports of
meningitis cases. That morning, a Saturday, state epidemiologist Pam Pontones
sent an email to CDC intelligence officer Rachel Smith saying, "We'll focus on
contacting the facilities on the list first."
"We'll contact the patients," Kristi Williams, pharmacy director at Union
Hospital in Terre Haute, told state health officials in an email the following
Monday. That same day, Oct. 1, Snyder said in an email that the state health
department had contacted by phone and email all six of the health facilities
that received the tainted lots of medication. The agency also distributed a
"script" for the clinics to read from when notifying patients who may have been
exposed.
Reel said Indiana and other states didn't receive data defining how to
recognize cases that would be considered part of the outbreak from the CDC until
Oct. 2, and the state agency immediately alerted physicians.
"It's critical physicians are made aware of signs and symptoms prior to any
public announcement so they can be prepared to discuss those signs and symptoms
and appropriately treat patients," Reel said.
As of 6:30 a.m. Oct. 4, health officials weren't aware of any meningitis
cases in Indiana, according to the documents. But by shortly after noon, they
knew that one case had been confirmed and two more were suspected.
"One case has been identified in Indiana, and we probably have at least two
more," Pontones said in an email.
That same day, the state health agency informed the clinics that the state
epidemiologist would be contacting them for a list of the patients who had
received the tainted injections, and to find out how many patients the clinics
had already contacted.
In the same email, Snyder told the clinics that the agency intended to
announce the outbreak to the public and planned to identify the facilities that
had received the contaminated steroid.
Reel said the state health agencies coordinated the release of information
with a CDC press conference on Oct. 4, the same day the first Indiana case was
confirmed.
As of Sunday, the CDC meningitis website was reporting 44 cases and three
deaths connected with Indiana.
The tainted steroids have been traced to the New England Compounding Center
of Framingham, Mass., which has since recalled the contaminated lots and
suspended production.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/10/28/indiana-knew-about-meningitis-outbreak-week-before-telling-public-documents/#ixzz2AdHzvF9j