BOSTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A 31-year-old Alabama woman says she filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts pharmacy linked to 37 deaths and 590 people sickened by contaminated medication.
Tawan Jenkins' federal complaint filed in Boston alleges she suffered temporary hearing loss and a painfully bloated face from an injection she received last summer at an Alabama hospital, the Boston Herald reported.
Jenkins of Whistler, Ala., and her husband said she was injected with the prescription painkiller Nalbuphine on June 24 at the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, "a known recipient of medications from New England Compounding Center," and "developed extreme pain, swelling, redness, drainage on the left side of her face between the earlobe and cheekbone and a temporary loss of hearing," the lawsuit said.
Jenkins' lawsuit accuses NECC of battery, negligence and failure to warn, the Herald said.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has not listed Alabama as one of the states having any patients sickened linked to the NECC and the CDC has not yet named Nalbuphine as an NECC medication contaminated in used or recalled vials.
The compounding pharmacy in Framingham, Mass., produced about 17,000 doses of the injectable steroid methylprednisolone acetate of which some 14,000 doses were used to treat back and joint pain.
Currently, there are 12 other civil actions representing 13 more alleged victims before U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston.
