Another Scope, Similar Infection Worries

Long before the recent superbug outbreaks, Olympus Corp. drew national attention for a faulty device tied to patient infections. In 2001, the Japanese company recalled thousands of bronchoscopes from U.S. hospitals after reports of contamination and patient infections. The episode — and the company's response to it — mirrors its current troubles with gastrointestinal scopes.

Bacteria were trapped unexpectedly inside a loose biopsy port on the bronchoscope, and potentially dangerous bugs could be passed to the next patient. More recently, a similar pattern emerged with duodenoscopes harboring life-threatening superbugs even though hospitals followed Olympus' cleaning instructions, federal regulators said.

Even after the 2001 recall, patients continued to get sick from tainted bronchoscopes because Olympus didn't reach all of its customers in a timely manner, according to regulators and hospitals. The bronchoscopes are used to examine the throat, trachea and lungs in about 500,000 procedures a year in the U.S...