Public Citizen calls for investigation into patient deaths

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.