A closer look into the meningitis outbreak's unwitting enablers

The New York Times: How Back Pain Turned Deadly
Randall Kinnard's legal clients had steroids injected into their backs last summer for a wide range of reasons. ... Now the 25 -- or their survivors -- have engaged Mr. Kinnaird, one of Nashville's leading lawyers, to sue the New England Compounding Center. ... But, experts say, the now notorious Compounding Center has a nationwide network of unwitting enablers and accomplices: There are the doctors who overprescribe an invasive back-pain therapy that, in studies, has not proved useful for many of the patients who get it. And there are the patients, living in an increasingly medicalized society, who want a quick fix for life's aches and pains (Rosenthal, 11/17).