Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Knoxville-area clinics say they aren't affected by injectable warning from state health department

CLEVELAND (WATE) - State health regulators are telling people not to use certain injectable medications produced by a Chattanooga-area compounding pharmacy. The state says two clinics in the Knoxville area received drugs from the pharmacy, but those clinics say the drugs they use are not the ones that have inspectors worried.
The pharmacy at the center of this is the Wellness Store Compounding Pharmacy in Cleveland, Tennessee.
A state investigation found violations like out-of-date ingredients, unsupervised production of sterile products and falsification of records.
The products in question include prescription eye drops, steroids, vitamin B12, amino acids and hormones.
The state sent out a list of clinics known to have received injectable medications from the Wellness Store, including East Tennessee Vein Clinic of Knoxville and Premier Weight Management of LaFollette.
6 News spoke with both of them Monday. Both told us that they do not use the sort of medications listed by the state in the notice.
East Tennessee Vein Clinic of Knoxville said:"Our patients were not affected by any of the injectable medications in question."
Melissa Justice, owner of Premier Weight Management, told 6 News: "Everything we do is to the letter of the law and the highest standards of health care. We do not use that company anymore."
The state health department says the warning was issued out of an abundance of caution, and that it is not aware of any patients harmed by those medications.
Affected clinics, according to the Tennessee Department of Health:
  • Associates in Spine and Joint Medicine, Cleveland, Tenn.
  • Cleveland Medical Associates, Cleveland, Tenn.
  • East Tennessee Vein Clinic, Knoxville, Tenn.
  • Hollywood Body Spa, Athens, Tenn.
  • Internal Medicine Group, Cleveland, Tenn.
  • Kennedy Clinic, Ooltewah, Tenn.
  • Lynn Garden Weight Loss, Kingsport, Tenn.
  • Premier Weight Management, LaFollete, Tenn.
  • Voytik Center for Orthopedics, Cleveland, Tenn

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