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Public Citizen is calling for federal inspectors general to investigate the deaths of two patients who were transfused with contaminated blood this summer that came from the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center.

The hospital, now part of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, sent blood to the NIH that had previously been identified and labeled as infectious, yet it was infused into two patients at NIH, according to Sidney M. Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

Wolfe, in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, calls for the two departments’ inspectors general to investigate and to “stop unequivocally dangerous procedures” at the Bethesda medical facility and “possible problems” at NIH.

Wolfe says his information came from an unnamed physician (called “Dr. X” in the letter) who had been involved in the care of one of the two patients. This doctor didn’t know the blood platelets from the donated blood were infectious until his patients went into septic shock on July 25.

Septic shock, a form of severe bloodstream infection, can lead to multiple organ failure. That is what transpired with this patient, who died on Sept. 7. The other patient infused with the infected platelets also developed septic shock and died in August, Wolfe writes.

Officials at NIH and Walter Reed didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment.

According to Wolfe’s letter, Dr. X  sent the blood platelet container to the NIH pathology department and found the platelets were “grossly contaminated” with Morganella bacteria “that can injure or kill patients with compromised immune systems.”

Wolfe says the two patients did in fact have compromised immune systems from getting chemotherapy treatment, and that both had the one unusual type of bacterial infection.

Wolfe asks the two federal agencies to investigate circumstances of the deaths, which he says “were entirely preventable.”

Image: Associated Press

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Public Citizen Calls for Investigation Into Patient Deaths