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Alcohol wipes manufactured by the Hartland-based Triad Group have been pulled from 38 VA medical centers – including one in Madison – for fear they could infect recovering veterans. The company, which recalled the wipes and other products earlier this year due to possible bacterial contamination, is under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

MSNBC reports that the wipes and other recalled Triad products, manufactured at the company’s Hartland plant, were pulled from the stockrooms of 38 VA medical centers, including the Madison VA Hospital. They weren’t found, however, at 114 other centers, including the Milwaukee VA Hospital and the Tomah VA Medical Center.

Several lawsuits filed by patients allege they contracted serious infections from Triad wipes contaminated with bacteria. In one case, filed in federal court in Texas, a Houston couple claims their son contracted meningitis from Triad wipes contaminated with Bacillus cereus, a bacterium normally associated with food poisoning. The boy died in December at the age of two.

According to MSNBC, wipes were also removed from the national VA Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy, a mail order pharmacy used by veterans. Federal officials told the cable news station that no infections at VA facilities had been linked to the recalled Triad products.

The Hartland plant is currently closed as the FDA investigates conditions there. The agency seized about $6 million in products from the facility in April.

It pushed to recall them after a children’s hospital in Aurora, Colo., linked Triad swabs to blood infections contracted by several young patients. One of them, a 10-year-old boy with leukemia, was “on the brink of death,” his mother told a Colorado TV station, but eventually survived.

FDA officials had been aware of possible sterilization issues at the Hartland plant since 2009 but didn’t consider them a risk to public health until the wipes were linked to the Colorado blood infections.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat, said in April that the Triad case is “a clear sign that the supply chain system for drugs and medical devices is broken … As FDA reauthorization approaches in Congress, I will continue to fight for stronger oversight for industry.”

In addition to the consumer lawsuits, Triad faces another lawsuit by Medikmark of Waukegan, Ill., a company that makes medical kits. Medikmark removed Triad wipes from its kits earlier this year.

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