According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), twenty-six cases of bacterial infections in patients who received musculoskeletal tissue grafts have been reported in the last four months. The CDC began investigating tissue donation procedures last November after Brian Lykins, 23, who had been in otherwise perfect health, was killed by the rare but deadly clostridium bacterium three days after undergoing elective knee surgery.

Thirteen of the twenty-six cases have involved clostridial contamination. Investigators believe at least eleven of these patients may have received tissue from the same processing company, CryoLife of Kennesaw, Georgia. Health officials are calling for immediate changes to sterilization procedures at tissue processing facilities.