VA "cadaver tissue and other material" problems overlooked

FDA Warnings to Body-Parts Vendors Overlooked by VA
Bloomberg News
By Kathleen Miller
Apr 2, 2014

A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs safety office isn’t tracking a health agency’s warnings on the potential for contaminated body tissue, a federal auditor’s review found.

The VA office doesn’t keep tabs on the Food and Drug Administration’s warning letters to suppliers of human and animal tissue, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released for a congressional hearing today.

Lawmakers are asking questions about the VA’s ability to identify recalled products and notify affected patients, and possible conflicts of interest from agency doctors serving on a board of a vendor that received an FDA warning.

“I am alarmed at the great risk of harm our veterans face when they receive biological implants,” Representative Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican and chairman of a House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee, said during the hearing.

The veterans agency ordered $241 million in cadaver tissue and other material derived from human and animal bodies in the past three years, some of which came from vendors warned by federal regulators about contamination in their supply chain, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The tissue is used to replace burned skin, restore broken bones and treat other conditions.
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