In the summer of 2018, six patients at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, developed a rare infection after they received injectable opioids diluted with tap water. This resulted in the patients developing bloodstream infections with Sphingomonas paucimobilis. 

Thankfully, all of the patients were treated with antibiotics and no deaths resulted from the infections, though some patients later died from causes related to their cancer. However, the question still remained: how did a bacterium, which naturally lives in soil and water, find its way into the bloodstreams of these patients?