It finally got too big to stay a secret. Although I’m sure the hospital would have preferred it had.
By now you’ve probably heard about the seven patients at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center who were infected with a deadly superbug. It was all because of a medical device used in a procedure.
And two of those patients have already died.
But there’s more to this story than just a piece of badly designed equipment or, possibly, a terrible hospital error.
And it’s more important than ever that you know how to protect yourself from becoming the next victim.
“Nightmare bacteria”
The news about the UCLA infections first came out at the end of February. But now there are additional cases.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles just reported that four more people have been confirmed to have the antibiotic-resistant superbug, called CRE, and 67 more patients are at “risk.”
And across the country in Hartford, Conn., five patients have been reported infected with a drug-resistant strain of E.coli, and over 280 others may also have been exposed.
Every one of those infections were caused by the same thing – a contaminated endoscope. And the devices were all made by the same company, the Olympus Corp.
Endoscopes, which are long, flexible tubes with a light and camera at the end, are used in tests and procedures that involve the gall bladder, pancreas and liver.
And the way these Olympus endoscopes are designed makes them especially difficult to clean thoroughly.
Now, the fact that this endoscope was (and still is) putting people’s lives at risk, wasn’t a sudden, surprising discovery.
No, the FDA knew all about the problem at least as early as January of 2013. That’s right, the agency that is charged with protecting our health was fully aware of these endoscope infections for two full years before the deaths at UCLA were announced.
And it did nothing.
But if you think that’s bad, the FDA is still doing nothing about it.
Actually, it’s worse than nothing. Doctors wanting to know what to do with their Olympus endoscopes are being told it’s simply business as usual.
In fact, the agency went so far as to say that it won’t remove the defective tools from the market because that would mean there wouldn’t be enough of these devices with which to perform procedures and tests!
Then there’s the “little” issue that one of the Olympus devices used wasn’t even approved by the FDA in the first place. But the agency now says that doesn’t really make any difference.
At this point, it looks doubtful that we’ll ever get the full story on how many people across the country have been harmed. And I’m especially sure that news won’t be coming from the FDA.
It took an investigation by USA Today in January to turn up three more outbreaks, one going back to 2012 in Seattle. In that case 32 patients were infected and seven died.
So it’s obvious that this has been going on for some time, with you and I being kept in the dark about it.
Now, if you’re scheduled for a test or procedure involving an endoscope, how can you be sure it’s safe?
Well, don’t ask the FDA what to do. Its just-out “guidance” for doctors and hospitals is to “thoroughly clean and disinfect” the device “pursuant to the manufacturers’ instructions.”
And that’s exactly what these hospitals reported doing. So how will that change anything?
But here’s what my research uncovered.
I went right to the source, the association for the medical device industry. And I found out that UCLA said that it not only used the Olympus sterilization standards, but also the national “guidelines.”
However, that hospital is now doing a “thorough cleaning” plus disinfection in an automated machine, plus “outsourced sterilization with ethylene oxide gas.”
So here’s what you need to do. Before you let anyone put one of these things down your throat, you need to find out whether your hospital is sterilizing its endoscopes or just cleaning them.
I know it will be awkward. It’s much easier to just trust that everything will be done correctly, but this is something you must ask.
Because right now it looks to be hit or miss, as hospitals are not required to subject these scopes to any type of routine sterilization method.
But certainly if UCLA can take these extra precautions, so can other places.
Unfortunately, it’s no longer good enough to simply have blind faith in a hospital or doctor.
You’ve got to take matters into your own hands in order to stay safe and not become simply another victim of what’s now being called the “nightmare bacteria.”
Sources:
“FDA: Unapproved duodenoscope okay to use” John Gever, March 5, 2015, MedpageToday, medpagetoday.com
“Hospitals don’t have to tell you about deadly superbug risks” John Tozzi, March 6, 2015, Bloomberg Business, bloomberg.com
