meningitis outbreak 2012

[Clodfobble]

Please don't let media scare tactics get to you. "Compounding" just means the pharmacist assembled the drug themselves from the base medicine(s). It used to be synonymous with being a pharmacist, before they started mass-producing pills in factories. To say it is "not regulated" only means that the FDA didn't stand over the guy's shoulder and watch it being put into pill/IV/whatever form. The source medications (prednisone) are regulated, the pharmacy itself is regulated, the licensed pharmacist is regulated. The same kind of accidental contamination happens in pill factories too--and many of those aren't even within this country. You can google the massive recalls of children's Tylenol products for just one recent example.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Please don't let media scare tactics get to you. "Compounding" just means the pharmacist assembled the drug themselves from the base medicine(s). It used to be synonymous with being a pharmacist, before they started mass-producing pills in factories. To say it is "not regulated" only means that the FDA didn't stand over the guy's shoulder and watch it being put into pill/IV/whatever form. The source medications (prednisone) are regulated, the pharmacy itself is regulated, the licensed pharmacist is regulated. The same kind of accidental contamination happens in pill factories too--and many of those aren't even within this country. You can google the massive recalls of children's Tylenol products for just one recent example.

Not to mention all those "not regulated" commercial enterprises that also take separate ingredients and compound them into products that you put into your body--restaurants.

There are lots of ways to become sick. I agree that the expectation is 100% that what a doctor injects into me will make be better, or at least "do no harm"--certainly not make me sick and die. But I believe it's a testament to how safe we actually *are* that such an unavoidable risk though small has drawn such attention. We're used to being kept safe partly by the regulations of government and partly by the good practices of businesses like these.