Minn. clinics linked to contaminated steroid

Two Twin Cities-based health care groups are rushing to contact patients who may have been infected with meningitis from contaminated steroids.

Medical Advanced Pain Specialists and the Minnesota Surgery Center used steroids that came from the same product lots implicated in a national meningitis outbreak. So far five patients have died and 30 others have been sickened in six states. No illnesses have been reported in Minnesota.

State Epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield suspects that Minnesota will identify cases in the coming days because hundreds of patients received the steroids for back pain.

"We estimate that there are about 600 people who received epidural injections with the product, and then there's probably an additional several hundred that had injections at other sites with this product," Lynfield said.

Medical Advanced Pain Specialists has locations in Edina, Fridley, Shakopee and Maple Grove. The Minnesota Surgery Center operates facilities in Edina and Maple Grove.

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