The first story I dipped into today on the meningitis outbreak that has afflicted 169 people and killed 14 was Sarah Kliff's piece at Ezra Klein's Wonkblog at The Washington Post. If you want to understand what led to the deadly fungal outbreak, she writes, take a look at a document called CPG Sec. 460.200 Pharmacy Compounding. It "is the one, single piece of paper that says what the Food and Drug Administration can and can't do" to regulate compounding pharmacies, which mix drugs to make new formulations for patients. The fungus allegedly came from steroid injections produced by a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts.
Sparing us the legalese, she says the document is vague about whether states or the FDA should regulate compounding, essentially saying that the FDA will handle the big cases and states the small ones. But it doesn't say where the line between those two lies, Kliff writes. What's big enough for the FDA? Or small enough to be handled by a state?
Elsewhere in The Washington Post, medical writer David Brown writes the main story, reporting that "14,000 people received either spine or joint injections with a long-acting steroid from one of three contaminated lots made by New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts." That's 1,000 more than the CDC had earlier estimated, he writes, in a comprehensive story that outlines what's known, what isn't, and why this outbreak could be very difficult to treat.
WBUR's Commonhealth blog features a post with highlights of the station's on-air reporting, a quick way to catch up on the news if you don't have time to listen to the audio. Commonhealth notes that the Massachusetts attorney general is cooperating with state and federal investigations into the company tied to the fungal contamination; that the company is denying responsibility; that a Minnesota woman has filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit against the company; and that Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, in a tight re-election race, is giving the $10,000 contribution he received from the company to the Meningitis Foundation of America.
Andrew Pollack at The New York Times reports that long before the fungal outbreak, the risks of steroid injections into the spine had been widely known. The injections, he reports, have "long been linked to other rare but devastating complications, including nerve damage, paralysis and strokes." He adds that the FDA is reviewing the risk of "catastrophic neurological injuries" from the injections.
Jennifer Corbett Dooren recaps the story's highlights at the Wall Street Journal. ABC News–its partnership with Yahoo makes it the most visited news site on the web–relies on Michael Smith of MedPage Today for its story. Yahoo runs a story from LiveScience.com by Rachel Rettner. It's a perfectly fine story, but we might ask why the partners in the top-ranking news site didn't do original reporting on an important story such as this one.
Amina Khan at The Los Angeles Times does a nice Q&A explainer. David Bailey at Reuters leads with the filing of the lawsuit.
-Paul Raeburn
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