State and federal health officials privately urged the Food and Drug Administration nearly six years ago to alert hospitals about contamination risks from specialized medical scopes that have been tied to a recent series of deadly superbug outbreaks.
The 2009 appeal came after duodenoscopes were linked to drug-resistant infections in dozens of Florida hospital patients, including 15 who died. In emails and a phone briefing, epidemiologists at the Florida Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the infections occurred because hospitals were having trouble cleaning the scopes properly, records obtained by USA TODAY show.
