Insight Imaging Issues Statement on Meningitis Threat

Seventy six medical facilities spanning 23 states received Methylprednisolone Acetate (PF) supplied by a Massachusetts company that is now believed to be the source of meningitis infections. One of those facilities was an imaging center that also offered epidural steroid procedures for pain. The radiology group, Insight Imaging, Roanoke, Va, is in the process of calling each of its patients who had epidural steroid injections during a July through September timeframe. “Together with providers across the country who are impacted, we continue to work closely with the Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the matter,” say Insight Imaging officials in a written statement to the press. “No other center in the Insight Imaging network is involved nor utilized the supplies in question. “Our team and physicians have always been and remain dedicated to patient care and safety, and we will continue to work closely with the Roanoke community, providers, patients and health officials on this matter,” the statement continues. “Our thoughts and prayers are with patients and their families impacted by this outbreak.” Public health officials suspect the problem originated from a company called the New England Compounding Center, Framingham, Mass, a supplier/manufacturer that Insight's Roanoke facility had ordered Methylprednisolone Acetate (PF) from. According to an October 6 New York Times article, the contamination of steroid medicine likely began with a fungus. “The rising toll—7 dead, 57 ill and thousands potentially exposed—has cast a harsh light on the loose regulations that legal experts say allowed a company to sell 17,676 vials of an unsafe drug to pain clinics in 23 states,” writes Denise Grady and other reporters in the NY Times. “Federal health officials said Friday that all patients injected with the steroid drug made by that company, the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., which has a troubled history, needed to be tracked down immediately and informed of the danger.”