NY Health Commissioner calls for multi-dose ban
New York State Health Commissioner Richard Daines has asked the Food and Drug Administration to end the manufacture and distribution of medications delivered via multi-dose vials. This was in response to a second Long Island doctor who, similar to Harvey Finkelstein, reused syringes on multiple patients. The second offender is Dr. E. Jacob Simhaee, an obstetrician-gynecologist who admitted to reusing syringes on 36 additional patients. Earlier in the month, New York announced that Dr. E. Jacob Simhaee reused syringes in multi-dose vials while inoculating for the flu. Daines said despite “numerous guidelines and recommendations,” some doctors continue to misuse needles and syringes, leading to contamination of multi-dose vials. New York is the only state that requires infection prevention training every four years as well as strict infection control requirements in hospitals and office-based surgeries. Despite this, Daines listed five hepatitis C and B outbreaks caused by poor infection control in NY since 2001.
