Meningitis victims sue as probe continues
2:25 AM, Oct 17, 2012
A third fungus — black mold most commonly found on outdoor plants — is likely part of the national meningitis outbreak linked to a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy that supplied epidural steroids and other drugs.\
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed one Cladosporium infection, and CDC Medical Epidemiologist Tom Chiller linked it to the outbreak. He shared the news in a conference call with doctors and pharmacists nationwide.
At the same time, agents with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raided the closed-down New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., carting off samples and documents.
An FDA spokesman called the raid part of the agency’s ongoing investigation. That includes checking drug samples from New England Compounding Center, reviewing the facility’s operations — including whether it had valid prescriptions for the drugs it compounded — and learning where the drugs went.
The Framingham plant shut down Oct. 3. On Oct. 4, New England Compounding Center recalled all of its 1,200 products.
The FDA is trying to determine how many doses of those products were shipped to clinics nationwide. In the meningitis outbreak, 17,676 vials of the steroid methylprednisolone acetate were shipped to 23 states.
At this point, the most frequent contaminant found in cases related to the compounding pharmacy is the fungus Exserohilum. Another fungus, Aspergillus, was detected in one patient — the September case at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that alerted officials to the meningitis outbreak that has now sickened 233 patients in 15 states. Fifteen of those patients have died.
In Tennessee, 59 patients with fungal meningitis had steroid epidurals into their spinal columns. Those were provided at PCA Pain Center in Oak Ridge, Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center in Nashville and the Specialty Surgery Center in Crossville.
The number of confirmed deaths in Tennessee remains at six.
Like the other two molds in the outbreak, Cladosporium is commonly found in the environment on decaying plant matter and soil, said Stephanie Petty, an environmental scientist at Nashville-based Resolution Inc., which provides environmental consulting for businesses.