The pseudomonas bacteria had somehow evaded the standard cleaning process, and it infected one patient after another.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because duodeonoscopes were also the cause of recent infections and deaths at UCLA. But Allen’s patients in Minnesota were infected in 1987 — and now doctors and members of Congress say they’re concerned the Food and Drug Administration might have missed the problem for decades.
CRE outbreak: You’re due to go in for a procedure. Should you?
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“I do think it will take a redesign of the scope to solve the problem, or new sterilization technology,” said Dr. Bret Peterson, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and lead author of the 2011 guidelines from the medical societies.
Olympus, which manufactured the scope used at UCLA, did not respond to CNN’s requests for comments specific to this story.
“This is clearly a matter that needs addressing,” said Dr. John Greene, an infectious disease expert at the Moffitt Cancer Center who published an article in 2013 on a duodenoscope outbreak in Tampa. “We really should have done this sooner.”
