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Saturday, October 6, 2012

Up to 1,000 Minnesota patients linked to meningitis outbreak; no reports in Coulee Region



ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Health estimates that as many as 1,000 patients may have received contaminated steroids that have been implicated in a national meningitis outbreak, but no patients in the Coulee Region have been exposed.
Two Twin Cities-based health care groups used steroids from the same product lots that have been linked to the deaths of five patients and 30 illnesses in six states.
So far Minnesota has not identified any cases of fungal meningitis related to the outbreak.
Officials at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center and Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse and Winona Health in Winona checked their pharmaceutical supplies and determined they never had that brand of steroid in their facilities, spokesmen said.
Officials with Medical Advanced Pain Specialists and the Minnesota Surgery Center are scrambling to contact all of their patients who received the potentially contaminated steroid injections. Medical Advanced Pain Specialists has locations in E http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/up-to-minnesota-patients-linked-to-meningitis-outbreak-no-reports/article_3045d8fe-0f74-11e2-bf70-001a4bcf887a.html?comment_form=true