Just in case you folks haven't taken notice, Triad, the Wisconsin medical supply firm tied to infections and death blamed on contaminated medical wipes, has been asked by the FDA to voluntarily stop making and distributing its drug products. The recall initially covered just alcohol pads but now has been widened to include Providone Iodine Pads as well. Note that products going back to '08 are affected. In one test, 40 out 60 of the pads tested from 8 out of 10 lots were found to be contaminated with infectious pathogens. In the case of the PVD pads, the contaminents include flesh eating bacteria.

While going thru my FAKs I found a box of PVP in my stock. And I know for a fact that I used a few of them last time I got a bad cut last summer.

Check the list of affected products just to be safe. Triad produced products for almost two dozen different brands including Walgreens and CVS.

Oh ... joy .... iodine pads contaminated with flesh eating bacteria. You use them on wounds that usually aren't infected to help prevent infections. Surprise!!

How the hell does that sort of thing happen? What ... did the town drunk, and local carrier of flesh-eating bacteria, just happen to fall in the tank? Seems someone would have noticed.

What next? Condoms with holes built in? Iodine tablets for nuclear accidents made with radioactive iodine?

I'll have to read up on the details and find out if stuff I stock is affected. It's not like I had anything better to do. My sock drawer will just have to go another day without reordering.

The good news is that Triad stockholders have made their money and won't be required to return any of it. Worse case those still holding the stock lose the purchase price. Bad news is suing the company won't likely get you much return on time and energy invested. Makes me wonder if free markets and less regulation are the way to go.

Okay, maybe I'm just a bit slow, but shouldn't the active ingredient in either product -- provided it was at the proper concentration -- kill absolutely bloody everything on the pad? I am not aware of bacteria that can withstand these corrosive/toxic materials in adequate concentrations.

Phaedrus... thanks for the heads up, my pads are Triad

This is pretty confusing. The fda website doesn't indicate whether the contamination is on the outside of the packet, or the inside of the packet. The identified microbe-Elizabethkingia meningoseptica- is a weird one that primarily infects neonates in third world countries, and otherwise caused some non-fatal infections in healthy folk-meaning that it is one of the opportunistic bugs that is routinely defeated by healthy immune systems.
It is one that I have never seen empirically, and it appears that we have some reliable antibiotics to treat it. Weird that the report is as sketchy as it is. And the rss feed from fda is spooky in its plethora of sketchily-described recalls.

Thanks for the scoop, Phaedrus. Just checked my PIPs and they are a different company. Thank goodness.

Echo that- how does anything live in a biocide?

I've got Triad, but they are like 3 years old... ahh hell. Now I need to check lot numbers.

I hate the 21st Century. Back when I was a boy, your germ killers killed germs, they didn't come with them!

I found it on Wikipedia,Elizabeth King was the founder of this Bacteria! Lotsa good info there,though nothing on Survivability in Iodine.

The recall goes back to products as old as 2008. I checked the numbers and mine are subject to the recall...wish I'd have saved the URL. What I'm curious about is what I should do with mine. Can I return them? It's not like they cost a fortune, but why should I pay for a product potentially tainted with a fatal pathogen? It seems like Triad should eat the cost.

No evidence that I can find that the germ is in the germicide. Not that it can't happen: when I was a newly-minted nurse, hospitals used a quaternary ammonium salt disinfectant called zephiran for everything from environmental sanitation to skin prep for spinal taps; they had just stopped using pHisohex, concerned over phenol absorption side effects. Then the sales reps for a competing product started showing off bottles of zephiran with a mold culture thriving in it. Disinfectants strong enough to work on the meanest microbe yet gentle to the skin are rare. (On the other)hand soap and clean water wash everything away, and leave the skin intact. Physicians tend to rely on enormous quantities of irrigation with normal saline for the dirtiest wounds. Alcohol/chlorhexidine swabs are the CDC standard for IV stick prep, sodium hypochlorite (clorox) solution the standard for environmental cleaning. Consider eliminating the betadine & alcohol packets, and adding some mild soap and water purification gear. Saves space, multifunctional, longer shelf life, and eliminates the possibility that one is getting a false sense of security by using the chemicals.