Meningitis, Steroid Injection | featured news

...These recent quality lapses at big drug companies show that contamination and shoddy practices extend well beyond the loosely regulated compounding pharmacies that have attracted attention because of their link to an outbreak of meningitis... [S]everal industry observers and former plant employees said that the recent quality issues were troubling and that manufacturers had been reluctant to fix problems because stopping production was simply too costly in a business where profits were driven by volume.

Seven more people have been diagnosed with fungal meningitis linked to possibly tainted vials of a steroid medication, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday, bringing the total number of cases to 205 in 14 states.

The House of Representatives on Friday widened its investigation into the deadly meningitis outbreak to include the role health regulators played in monitoring the pharmacy that produced steroid treatments suspected of causing the crisis.

Two more people have died from fungal meningitis linked to steroid injections, bringing the total to 14 deaths since the outbreak began last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said on Thursday.

As authorities continue to focus on a potentially contaminated steroid as the source of a widening outbreak of fungal meningitis, some patient-safety advocates are calling for greater restrictions on the type of injection involved.