Judge Sets Hearing on Patient Harm

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A federal judge has set a hearing for next week on a key issue in the upcoming trial of the nine remaining defendants indicted in the federal probe of a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns has agreed to hold a hearing Tuesday in his Boston, Mass. courtroom on the issue of whether or not prosecutors can present evidence of harm caused to patients as a result of the 2012 outbreak caused by fungus riddled drugs produced by the now defunct New England Compounding Center.
Lawyers for the defendants have argued that presenting evidence of patient harm would be highly prejudicial.
They also have stated that their clients had nothing to do with the production of contaminated methylprednisolone acetate causing the deaths of some 76 patients around the country. Those victims were among nearly 800 sickened by contaminated NECC drugs.
In their motion the attorneys stated that their clients did not "have any responsibility whatsoever for any methylprednisolone related act or omission that caused harm to patients."
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Strachan and George Varghese have asked Stearns to reject the request to bar evidence of patient harm.
They argued that the evidence was "direct and intrinsic" and necessary to show the existence of a conspiracy. They also noted that they already have agreed not to call victims as witnesses or to present autopsy reports on the victims who died.
Also pending before Stearns are motions from three of the defendants seeking separate trials. Currently all nine are slated to go on trial on Oct. 2.
The nine defendants were among 14 indicted by a federal grand jury in late 2014. Two, Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin, are already serving lengthy prison sentences.
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