Dr. Yu and Dr. Stout believe that this outbreak occurred because since they left the VA, the water treatment system there that had worked so well for so long was mismanaged.
Dr. Stout said prior to this current outbreak, there was not one case of Legionnaires’ disease at the University Drive hospital that was confirmed as being acquired in the hospital since 1997.
That was four years after she and Dr. Yu had a copper-silver ionization system installed to treat the hospital’s water. Two weeks ago the VA declared that the outbreak was due to the failure of the copper-silver system and it was switching to a chlorination system favored by the CDC.