An estimated 13,000 patients may have been exposed to the tainted spinal steroid injections which have sickened more than 100 people with fungal meningitis and killed eight, federal officials said Monday, as clinics and surgery centers continued to reach out to those who could be affected.
So you are having a shit fit over 0.06% of the folks exposed? Really?
It was the first estimate of the potential scope of the meningitis outbreak, which has been traced by federal and state investigators to three lots of methylprednisolone acetate injections produced by New England Compounding Center.
Some 105 people in nine states have been sickened by fungal meningitis, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The outbreak has drawn renewed attention to the little-regulated world of compounding pharmacies.
Thought you said there was no regulation?
The FDA is hampered by federal law and conflicting federal court decisions over its authority to regulate compounding pharmacies.
Current and former senior FDA officials said the agency has sought greater authority over the past decade, but so far has been stymied.
Government officials say the FDA is especially concerned about large compounding pharmacies that send out large amounts of drugs across the country—as opposed to a small pharmacy that may compound a medication three or four times a year.
Actually, it would be more concerning for folks that only do it three or four times a year because they would probably not be as good at it. For example. Who would you rather cut out your gall bladder? A doctor who has done it 500 times a year or a surgeon who has done it twice? Common sense always helps if you employ it; kinda like abstinence.
In particular, the agency hasn't been able to take the normal steps it would take to ensure the safety of a drug produced at a compounding pharmacy.
That includes requiring and evaluating clinical trials, and inspection of manufacturing facilities.
Clinical trials to prove what? That the drug actually works? Most compounding done is for off label uses. Who is going to fund these clinical trials? Where is your control group going to come from? Inspecting facilities won't stop bad things from happening. FDA inspects foods all the time and we still get tainted food don't we
Attempts in the past by the agency to regulate more strenuously have been challenged in court.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443982904578044682649925200.html