Yikes - tainted medical supplies in the USA
We rag on China a lot for their melamine tainted foods and tainted Heparin but this crap also happens in the USA. From
ProPublica:
Could FDA Have Prevented Syringe Deaths?
After news broke this week about a North Carolina factory tied to bacteria-tainted syringes that killed five patients, criminal investigators revealed a telling fact: The company�s "chief microbiologist" was a teenage high school dropout.
This week, two former employees of the AM2PAT manufacturing center in Angier, N.C., pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to falsifying documents and shipping bacteria-tainted syringes full of blood thinners meant for patients receiving intravenous fluids.
Authorities are still seeking the company�s owner, who will face a 10-count indictment. In addition to the deaths, more than 200 people were sickened by contaminated syringes.
The case raises a glaring question: As this biological tragedy was taking shape, where was the agency charged with standing between Americans and deadly medicine?
The Food and Drug Administration, it turns out, was aware of problems at the 40-employee lab as early as 2005.
I hope that these people spend a lot of time in jail contemplating their decisions. This is unconscionable. Why is it that we can have a bazillion dollar Porkulus inflation of the government and agencies like the FDA are allowed to keep on doing a crappy job. And I realize that there are exceptional FDA agents out there, still, allowing a company to manufacture tainted goods for more than three years beggars the imagination.
Posted by DaveH at March 2, 2009 10:02 PM