WASHINGTON – Health officials are investigating cases involving patients who suffered complications after being injected with potentially contaminated medications made by a Tennessee specialty pharmacy.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday the problems involve seven patients who received steroid injections from Main Street Family Pharmacy, a compounding pharmacy in Newbern, Tenn.

Tennessee health officials said the pharmacy has agreed to recall all of its sterile products, which are generally injectable prescription drugs. Officials from the FDA and the Tennessee Department of Health have been inspecting the Newbern pharmacy since Wednesday.

Officials have not confirmed that the products are contaminated, but they are being treated as though they are, Tennessee Health Commissioner John Dreyzehner said Friday.

The injections contain methylprednisolone acetate, the same drug at the center of last year’s deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis. More than 55 people have died and over 740 others have been sickened after receiving contaminated injections from a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy. The steroids are typically used to treat pain.

“Based on everything we know right now, this situation does not approach the severity of the fungal infections in 2012,” Dreyzehner said. But he added that it is still “very early in a rapidly evolving investigation.”

Main Street Family Pharmacy said that it supports the FDA’s recommendation that patients not be injected with the medications until the investigation is finished.

Federal authorities have identified five cases in Illinois and two more in North Carolina. All five patients from Illinois had skin infections in the hips and buttocks while at least one patient in North Carolina appears to have a fungal infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 


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