MA - Tainted drug caused 793 cases of fungal meningitis, 76 deaths, 2012

[Indy Anna]

Thank you for the updates, OG. I didn't read on WS about the tainted injections back in 2012, but I remember very well reading and hearing about it in the news. I got 2 spinal steroid injections the same year, one in September, but the clinics where I got my injections didn't receive any of the tainted medication. The deaths hit me really hard, though, because I empathized with the victims.... they just wanted to be rid of their pain so they could function more normally in daily life. I cried each time I read or heard about more deaths attributed to the injections. Reading about the selfishness, incompetence, deception and disregard for human life of those who had control over the operations of the lab brought tears to my eyes again. :tears:

 

[AlwaysShocked]

Were these drugs being purchased for cut rate prices, I wonder? The reason I ask is that when I looked at the list of places that got the drug, they all looked to be "independent clinics" as opposed to any hospital-associated sites.

Also, I noticed that three different clinics that got the tainted drugs are located in Ocala, Florida. I would not have thought Ocala is a large enough city to even support three pain clinics!

I have a disabled friend who has been getting the epidural injections for years now. Thankfully he goes to a hospital based pain clinic that did not receive the tainted drug.

 

[Indy Anna]

Were these drugs being purchased for cut rate prices, I wonder? The reason I ask is that when I looked at the list of places that got the drug, they all looked to be "independent clinics" as opposed to any hospital-associated sites.

Also, I noticed that three different clinics that got the tainted drugs are located in Ocala, Florida. I would not have thought Ocala is a large enough city to even support three pain clinics!

I have a disabled friend who has been getting the epidural injections for years now. Thankfully he goes to a hospital based pain clinic that did not receive the tainted drug.

I got two of my injections from a hospital based pain clinic but the last one, which was soon after people began dying from the tainted injections, was at an independent clinic. They didn't receive the medication from the offending lab, though, and I made sure of that before I went. There was a pain clinic less than 40 miles from me that did receive some of the tainted drugs. It's just very scary to think of the risks we take when we place confidence in medical professionals with the thought that all are looking out for our welfare. In this case, of course, the pain management doctors at the clinics were not at fault; they had no way of knowing that the drugs were tainted. They were very torn up about what happened to some of their patients.

I live in a rather small town and thought there were only two pain-management doctors in town who administer the injections. But, I found out recently that there are other doctors administering them. Someone told me that all neurologists can administer the injections.

To answer your question, I believe I did read that the cost of the drug was lower than from some other labs. It's so sad that anyone would cut back on quality at the cost of people's lives for the sake of being more competitive business-wise.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.westfieldrepublican.com/...or-ex-pharmacy-officials.html?isap=1&nav=5072

A federal judge on Friday ordered home confinement and GPS monitoring for two former officials with a now-defunct Massachusetts compounding pharmacy at the center of a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened more than 750 others across the country...

Cadden was released on $500,000 bail; Chin was released on $50,000 bail. Boal also banned both men from working in the pharmaceutical industry while they await trial.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trials-...-facing-murder-charges-draw-closer-1483471059

Jury selection is expected to begin in federal court in Boston on Wednesday for the trial of Barry J. Cadden, who co-owned the now-closed New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. The trial of another pharmacist who worked there, Glenn Chin, is set to begin immediately after Mr. Cadden’s ends...

In December, the former national sales director at an affiliate of the pharmacy, Robert Ronzio, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the FDA. Mr. Ronzio hasn’t been sentenced. He is cooperating with the government and is expected to testify at trials of other defendants...

The former majority shareholders of the pharmacy, husband and wife Douglas and Carla Conigliaro, pleaded guilty in July to structuring charges, or withdrawing cash from bank accounts in a manner intended to avoid financial reporting requirements. Ms. Conigliaro was sentenced to one year of probation and a $4,500 fine. Mr. Conigliaro was sentenced to two years of probation and a $55,000 fine.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.njherald.com/article/20170106/AP/301069684#

A jury has been seated to hear the case against a former top executive at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy blamed for a national meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people in 2012...

Opening statements are set for Monday.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.wcvb.com/article/as-trial-begins-details-on-fatal-2012-meningitis-outbreak/8577097

Barry Cadden was making millions at the New England Compounding Center, but the government says it wasn’t enough for him to put safety before even more profit.

"It's a story of greed, a story of cutting corners. But mostly it's a story of fraud,” Assistant U.S. Attorney George Varghese told jurors Monday morning during opening statements in Cadden’s murder trial...

Prosecutors showed the jury pictures of each of the 25 victims, including Godwin Mitchell of Florida, who died after receiving a routine pain shot. The steroids that he received were contaminated with a fungus, which grew on the blood vessels in his brain. Godwin was playing the harmonica when he dropped it and collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital. He lingered there for a few months and died.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/lo..._details_hijinks_at_necc_lax_safety_standards

The supposedly sterile “clean room” where tainted steroids linked to 64 deaths and hundreds of illnesses were made was an animal house replete with co-workers wrestling, arguing over whether to blare rap or sports talk on the radio, and riding drug carts like bumper cars, a former pharmacy technician recalled.

As business boomed in 2012, an overwhelmed New England Compounding Center in Framingham spiraled toward a public-health disaster, according to Owen J. Finnegan... “Cleaning became much less of a stressed importance,” Finnegan said...

Shortly before the fatal meningitis outbreak struck nationwide, Finnegan said NECC was cutting corners to keep up with soaring demand for its meds, including shipping drugs that were supposed to be quarantined for two weeks and letting critical disinfecting chores slide for weeks at a time.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/new...tims-face-lingering-infections-life/97114812/

A physician who unknowingly injected dozens of his patients with a fungus tainted steroid says some of the victims will be fighting lingering infections for the rest of their lives...

Washabaugh, the Michigan physician, said he first learned of the outbreak on Oct. 3 from a message that had been left on the clinic's voice mail the night before. At first, he said, he didn't grasp how serious the situation was. He learned fast.

"By Oct. 5, two of my patients had died," Washabaugh said...

He said the clinic tried to reach NECC, but the calls went unanswered.

Washabaugh said that the apparent cases quickly began to multiply, ultimately some 230 clinic patients were sickened.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/02/22/fda-raced-find-cause-meningitis-outbreak/98276294/

A microbiologist for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration testified that he had never seen sterile drugs as contaminated as the ones he rushed to analyze in October of 2012 from the New England Compounding Center...

The samples arrived on Oct. 3, just as a formal announcement of the fungal meningitis outbreak was becoming public.

He said a first look at the vials of methylprednisolone acetate showed nine had visible black spots and he removed the stringy mass from one vial to examine it...

Describing blackish and white-ish mold found in the NECC drugs, Istafanos said, "This is a sterile drug. It should have nothing in it."

http://www.wcvb.com/article/he-said-its-us-he-knew-right-way-it-was-us/9090512

The NECC national sales manager Robert Ronzio testified as part of a plea deal that owner Barry Cadden was trying to dodge regulators and mislead customers in order to make millions of dollars...

On the stand Friday, Ronzio told jurors that when they learned of the first meningitis victim in Tennessee, Cadden knew his company's steroids were to blame.

Ronzio told jurors, "When it first happened, he said, 'It's us.' He knew right way it was us."

The CDC, FDA and state investigators testified that Cadden never told them this, and it took six more days until they figured out what happened and sent out a nationwide alert.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Pharmacist convicted of racketeering, fraud in fungal meningitis outbreak

Jurors in the trial of pharmacist Barry Cadden delivered a mixed verdict Wednesday in connection with a deadly 2012 nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak.

Cadden, 50, owner and head pharmacist of the New England Compounding Center, was convicted of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead.

He was acquitted of 25 counts of second-degree murder.

"We are very gratified by the verdicts today. ... Those are extremely serious offenses, and they carry very stiff penalties," said William Weinreb, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, after the verdict was announced. "Of course, we're disappointed that the jurors did not also find that he committed the second-degree murder predicate counts."

US District Court Judge Richard Stearns scheduled sentencing for June 21. Cadden faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the mail fraud and racketeering counts, according the US Attorney's Office.

NECC co-owner convicted in meningitis outbreak

Bruce Singal, an attorney for Cadden, said he would appeal on the grounds there was insufficient evidence to hold Cadden responsible for the outbreak, saying Cadden was an executive not directly involved in mixing drugs. Singal said Cadden was mindful it was important “to remember the victims of this public health tragedy,” but said his client should never have been accused of murder.

“Murder is the worst crime known to humanity, and it is a terrible injustice that Barry Cadden was labeled with this charge by the government for more than two years,” Singal said. “It was unprovable, unwarranted, and unjustified, and we are deeply grateful the jury saw it that way.”

The fraud and racketeering convictions each carry potential punishments of up to 20 years in prison, though multiple sentences are often layered on top of each other and are served at the same time. Cadden’s sentence would be based on sentencing guidelines that account for his convictions and the nature of the crimes, but also his personal characteristics and lack of a criminal record. Weinreb said prosecutors were still assessing an appropriate sentence recommendation based on sentencing guidelines and the jury’s verdict.

The verdict was split, with jurors agreeing to convict Cadden on some fraud charges, but not all. Jurors convicted Cadden of sending out the contaminated drugs, though they acquitted him of charges that he sought to mislead customers by providing them with adulterated drugs. He was also found not guilty of charges that he knowingly mislabeled drugs.

Cadden was also acquitted of charges that he sought to defraud the US Food and Drug Administration by treating his center as a pharmacy, rather than a manufacturing center, which would have subjected New England Compounding to greater federal scrutiny.

Weinreb would not say how prosecutors will proceed with other criminal cases related to the outbreak, including the April trial of Chin, who was Cadden’s supervisory pharmacist.

Seven other workers, including pharmacists at the Framingham center, are slated to go to trial on related charges. US District Judge Richard G. Stearns dismissed charges against two other people. A former salesman, Robert Ronzio, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government and testify against Cadden. He has not been sentenced.

Chin’s lawyer, Stephen Weymouth, said in an interview that prosecutors should scale back the case against his client based on the jury’s verdict in Cadden’s case — if Chin’s case goes to trial at all. He said Chin might admit to some of the charges, but not murder.

Victims disappointed pharmacy owner wasn’t convicted of murder

To family members whose relatives died from tainted drugs or to people left with unremitting pain, a jury’s verdict Wednesday convicting a pharmacy owner of racketeering and mail fraud was small comfort.

Barry Cadden, they said, should have been convicted of murder.

Carol Burema Snyder’s mother, Pauline Burema, died in October 2012 after receiving a tainted steroid injection from New England Compounding Center.

“I am sad it is not murder, but he knows what he has done,” said Snyder, who lives in New Mexico. “Sitting in prison, even if he says I didn’t murder these people, he is still there.”

Nine of the 12 jurors voted to convict Cadden of Burema’s murder, according to the jury’s verdict form.

Dee Morell, a 52-year-old former X-ray technician in New Jersey, said she still suffers such intense pains in her hip from the contaminated shot she received in September 2012 that she has been unable to work, and takes pain medications daily.

“He had no regard for human life, really. He was very greed-oriented,” she said. “I just can’t even comprehend how someone can let so many things go like he did knowing it was going to affect people.”

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Murder Trial For Pharmacist In Meningitis Outbreak Delayed

https://www.law360.com/trials/articles/917219/murder-trial-for-pharmacist-in-meningitis-outbreak-delayed

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday delayed the trial for the second pharmacist charged with racketeering and second-degree murder in the 2012 fatal meningitis outbreak by a month, to September.

New England Compounding Center pharmacist Glenn Chin was supposed to go to trial in early August on a slew of charges stemming from the outbreak, allegedly caused by NECC’s mold-tainted drugs. But according to his court staff, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns worried that a jury would not be able to be convened during the summer months.

Now, the jurors will be summoned in early September, with questionnaires and voir dire to follow. Openings are slated for Sept. 20.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Judge Told Jurors In Meningitis Outbreak Case To Be Unanimous — But Verdict Form Shows Division

http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/05/15/necc-cadden-jury-verdict-form

Judge Stearns had given the jurors the standard instructions, he says.

"You have to be unanimous up or down: guilty or not guilty," Schumacher says.

The clerk handed the jurors' verdict form to Judge Stearns. He read the 21 pages of verdicts to himself. But there was something amiss.

Stearns said, "In some cases on the verdict slip ... the jurors indicate how they voted in terms of a division."

NYU School of Law Professor Stephen Gillers, considered a national expert on judicial ethics and the law governing trials, says that was "weird."

"The word 'division' is inconsistent with the word 'unanimous,' and verdicts have to be unanimous in federal court in criminal cases," Gillers says.

Remember: The clerk was the only one with the verdict form, so the lawyers couldn't see what she was reading. But much later, when they did see that form and when it was too late to do anything about it, the prosecutors discovered something even more stunning.

"It’s an extraordinary verdict form, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen," Schumacher says. "They actually recorded numbers. They're literally recording their votes."

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Pharmacy boss blamed for meningitis outbreak gets 9 years

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/pharmacy-head-sentenced-deadly-meningitis-outbreak-48275072

The co-owner of a pharmacy responsible for the deaths of 76 people was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison after he tearfully apologized to victims who described watching their loved ones die or enduring excruciating physical pain from a 2012 nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak caused by contaminated steroids.

"I am so sorry for your extraordinary losses," Barry Cadden said, wiping his eyes. "I am sorry for the whole range of suffering that resulted from my company's drugs."

The sentence was far less than more than a dozen victims asked for while making emotional victim impact statements to U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns. Many asked the judge to send the 50-year-old Cadden to prison for the rest of his life.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Pharmacist in deadly meningitis outbreak heading to trial

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-bc-us--meningitis-outbreak-20170917-story.html

Glenn Chin, the supervisory pharmacist at the now-closed New England Compounding Center in Framingham, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) west of Boston, is to go on trial Tuesday for his role in the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds of others.

Chin faces up to life in prison if convicted of all counts of second-degree murder under federal racketeering law.

Experts, and Chin's defense attorney, believe prosecutors have a stronger case against Chin than they did against the co-founder of the compounding pharmacy, Barry Cadden.

 

[margarita25]

(Ugh this is so horrible and scary! So sad for the victims here.)

 

[Lilibet]

(Ugh this is so horrible and scary! So sad for the victims here.)

Yes, this was unnecessary suffering and death brought about by lazy greed.

Slightly OT--This certainly is scary, since something like this could happen to any of us. While this was deliberate "incompetence," I'm routinely shocked by the clerical dropped balls in my own doctor's office. I've complained to him and he is aware of the problem and trying to track it down, but I have to be vigilant. It's not life-threatening, but could be for some people, and it certainly impacts my care and convenience. I'm told by other medical offices that this is a widespread problem because finding competent, conscientious employees is very difficult. How scary is that?!

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Lawyers trade jabs as meningitis outbreak murder trial opens

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/trial-begin-pharmacist-charged-meningitis-outbreak-49943831

Assistant U.S. Attorney George Varghese told jurors Chin instructed staff to use expired ingredients, falsify documents and neglect cleaning to get the products out the door as quickly as possible. Chin also failed to properly sterilize the drugs, shipped products before they were tested and ignored findings of mold and bacteria in the clean rooms, Varghese said.

"Glenn Chin knew better," Varghese said during his opening statement. "He knew with what he was doing there was a reasonable likelihood that people were going to die, and he did it anyways."

But Chin's attorney urged jurors not to let their sympathy for the victims get in the way of the facts in the case.

"The government has no evidence that will ever be able to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Glen Chin murdered 25 people," Weymouth said.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Meningitis outbreak victim's daughter details his final hours

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/09/21/meningitis-outbreak-victims-daughter-details-his-final-hours/691269001/

Holding back tears, the daughter of one of the first victims of the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak described his final fight for survival in a Nashville hospital.

Karen Talbott, the daughter of Kentucky Judge Eddie Lovelace, said doctors could not explain how or why the healthy 78-year-old had an unusual stroke centered in the middle of his brain.

"We thought it was just a stroke," Talbott told the jury in U.S. District Court. That panel is hearing testimony in the racketeering and second-degree murder trial of Glenn Chin, a supervising pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, which produced thousands of vials of a spinal steroid laced with fungus.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Pharmacist on trial in meningitis outbreak guilty on racketeering, cleared of murder

Glenn Chin was convicted on charges including conspiracy, more than 40 counts of mail fraud and introducing adulterated drugs into interstate commerce.

Chin's verdict mirrors, although not precisely, the verdict against codefendant Barry J. Cadden, who like Chin was convicted on mail fraud and related charges but cleared of the same 25 second-degree murder counts. Cadden already has begun serving a nine-year prison sentence.

In closing arguments as well as throughout the trial, Cadden's lawyers pointed to Cadden as the decision-maker, even suggesting that Chin and the sole quality control officer were chosen for key roles not for competence, but for their willingness to say yes.

Pharmacist linked to deadly meningitis outbreak cleared of murder

Scott Shaw, whose mother Elwina died after she was injected with the contaminated drugs, said he was surprised and disappointed jurors refused to find Chin responsible for the deaths.

"It was his hand, no doubt, that mixed that medicine that killed mom," the North Carolina man said.

Chin was charged with in the deaths of 25 people in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. He would have faced up to life in prison had he been convicted of the murders. Chin is set to be sentenced in January.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Pharmacist in meningitis outbreak gets 8 years in prison

Glen Chinn, who ran the so-called clean rooms where the drugs were made, sobbed as he struggled through his statement during his sentencing hearing in Boston's federal courthouse. Chin said he knows some victims will never forgive him, but he'll continue to pray that they will find some sort of peace.

"I realize these are just words and nothing will bring back your loved ones," the 49-year-old said, occasionally turning to look directly at the victims and their relatives seated behind him. "But believe me when I say that I am truly sorry that this ever occurred," he said.

http://www.wbur.org/news/2018/01/31/glenn-chin-sentenced-8-years

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan relayed how a victim's daughter said she heard her mother's scream of pain from floors below when the daughter visited her mother in the hospital. The daughter compared the sound of her mother's screams to the sound of the ship careening into the ocean in the movie "Titanic," Strachan said.

Mary Beth Krakowski of South Bend, Indiana, whose aunt died at age 88 after being injected with the contaminated drugs, told Chin he had a chance to be a "hero" and blow the whistle on the pharmacy's dangerous practices.

"How did you get lost? How did you lose those ideals? How could you have fallen so far to become uncaring, cold and callous enough to put the patients' welfare behind your personal gain?" asked Krakowski, the niece of Alice Machowiak.