E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSAs the death toll and the case counts continued to climb Monday in an outbreak of fungal meningitis tied to tainted pain shots, health officials admit they’ve been stymied in their best efforts to treat patients.
“I don’t think we have a very good handle on exactly what is happening or how this is playing out,” said Dr. Tom Chiller, deputy chief of the mycotic diseases branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thirty people have died and 419 have developed fungal meningitis or joint infections in 19 states after receiving injections of contaminated steroid drugs earlier this year, the CDC reported Monday.
Those numbers include dozens of patients who have developed abscesses at the infection site or another condition called arachnoiditis, an inflammation of the delicate membranes that surround and protect the nerves of the spinal cord.
In Michigan, for instance, which has logged the most cases -- 119, plus seven deaths -- 61 patients have developed fungal meningitis; 51 who developed epidural abscesses, six joint infections and one stroke.
“In some cases, those abscesses have developed into meningitis,” said Angela Minicuci, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Community Health.
What’s particularly alarming is that some patients have become sicker even though they’ve been taking powerful antifungal drugs aimed at wiping out the black mold Exserohilium, which has been responsible for most of the illnesses.
“What we do know from hearing from a few centers is that around a third of patients with meningitis are having some sort of disease progression,” Chiller said.
It’s not clear why some patients aren’t responding to the therapy. The fungi are difficult to treat, Chiller said, but tests showed that the organisms should have been killed by the drugs. Doctors don’t know whether the problem is the natural progression of the disease itself, or perhaps the body’s immune system kicking into action, Chiller said.
“Are we actually killing the fungi and this is a reaction?” he asked. “It’s not responding to therapy that well, or it’s responding very slowly.”
For patients who already have been affected, that means they can expect a protracted recovery from the fungal infections. “It will be a long-term therapeutic management issue,” Chiller said.
About 17,000 vials of contaminated steroids were sent out by the New England Compounding Center, the Framingham, Mass., pharmacy at the center of the outbreak. That company has lost its license. A sister firm, Ameridose LLC, is also being investigated for problems with sterility. Both companies have recalled all their products.
For the 14,000 patients who received the shots, the greatest risk of developing infections is in the first 42 days -- six weeks -- after the injections, CDC has said. Unfortunately, Chiller said, some risk of serious illness does remain.
“By 42 days, your risk is really, really low,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that anyone with a symptom, a sign, shouldn’t express that to their physician. Any pain that’s not getting better, that’s getting worse, they should report that.”
Related stories:
- Fallout from fungal meningitis mess: more drug shortages
- Bacteria, more fungi found in drugs from firm tied to meningitis outbreak
Leave a Comment:
next question... are they gene sequencing the raw mold from the vials, as well as the resistant mold from the victims having issues, to see if we have developed a mutant strain that is resistant to the drugs? if so, a higher level of isolation should be imposed, and new drug testing started up to see if there is anything that can knock this stuff back.
Lets see if a resistance gene sequence was intentionally inserted and if Big Pharma happens to have the antidote. They dont want us to be independent from Switzerland. Thats Drug and Banking Central.
Use the owners and executives from NECC for guinea pigs. Give them their own medicine and try out various treatments. Give them about 20 shots each so there are plenty of sites to experiment on. Zombie Capitalists should pay with their lives to deter the kind of business model that produced this catastrophe. And yes, this is the direct result of a flawed business model that put profits ahead of everything else. These people are murderers for money.
NECC should have been inspected and shut down immediately when the infection was discovered. Now people have lost their lives, loved ones are ill and no antibiotic in sight, just suffering for the remainder of people caught in lazy procedures by a reckless company. Life is too short to keep NECC solvent. Shut the doors and keep them shut!
So sad, hundreds of people sickened with no treatment protocol that seemingly works. You can put a man on the moon, but...
Finally, someone makes an honest admission! Now if only Repugnicans in Congress would own up to this fact as well.
I don't see how at this point this isn't being treated as a criminal matter. So they lost their license, is that the sentence for 30 counts of negligent homicide?
They should put them in hyperbaric oxygen 2.85 ATA (atmospheres) every day until the infections clear. Stat!
What makes you think that would work?
The need to be criminal charges filed against the people responsible for this, including state and perhaps federal regulators, as well as state and national professional oversight and credentialing organizations, really . . .
Really! :-o
This is a terrible situation that, apparently, has happened before! How many people have to die before the we insist that our government agencies do their jobs?!
http://www.wral.com/meningitis-survivor-we-re-killing-our-own-people-/11730476/
Probably another example of how great small government is. More than likely the state agencies responsible for inspections have been cut to the bone. Deregulation, a Republican mantra, could be a factor, also.
Oh sure, isn't that how the patients got on the table in the first place?
Fungi and bacteria together can form a biofilm where the bacteria exude beta amyloid protine and an extracellular polysaccharide which protect the colony and make them 1000 times more resistant to antibiotics, an possibly fungicides than the organisms.
Interestingly enough yellow dye 1, which interacts with and stains the amyloid may allow the antibiotics and fungicide to be effective.
If the bacteria and fungi are forming a biofilm, then yellow dye 1 should help.
Duhhhh!!!! The epidural abscesses are NOT progression of the disease and they are NOT complications of the meningitis! THE EPIDURAL INFECTION AND COLONIZATION IS THE PRIMARY DISEASE!!! The primary foot hold of the fungal invasion has simply been overlooked, or ignored. We know that the fungal growth is hard to image even on standard MRI....so how many victims have had high resolution MRI with stronger magnets? What other investigation has been done to look for evolving focal epidural growth of fungus. After all the CDC and other "experts" have advised to wait for the onset of signs and symptoms of meningitis! We are getting advise on how to treat LATE manifestations of the disease when the victims of this assault deserve an all out and aggressive search for all locations of fungal entrenchment.