Book Details Deadly 2012 Outbreak

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

The federal judge who presided over the criminal cases stemming from the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak was "openly skeptical" of the 25 second degree murder charges brought by federal prosecutors against two pharmacists.
That's one of the conclusions in "Kill Shot" a new book on the deadly outbreak. Written by Jason Dearen, the 254-page book details the suffering of the dozens of outbreak victims who were injected with steroids loaded with deadly fungi. The offficial publication date is Tuesday Feb. 23 but copies can be pre-ordered.
Dearen writes that U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns thought the second degree murder charges filed against Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin were "bloated." Stearns, he writes,had made clear from the start that he never believed that a murder case was appropriate."
Though the book ends with details of the criminal case, the account begins years earlier when the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak began striking down its victims, a Kentucky judge, a worker in a Tennessee auto plant and a Michigan construction worker.
Dearen describes in detail the desparate efforts of state and federal regulators to identify the cause of dozens of unexplained deaths that surfaced in the Fall of 2012.
The book explains how a Nashville physician was the first to sound an alarm over the mysterious death of one of her Vanderbilt Medical Center patients.
Though regulators at first thought the problem might be confined to patients at a Nashville pain clinic the deaths began to surface in other states.
Through court testimony, thousands of pages of court exhibits and extensive interviews, Dearen reconstructs what became the worst public health crisis ever caused by a precription drug.
Cadden and Chin were among 14 persons connected to the New England Compounding Center who were indicted in 2014 following a two-year federal probe of the outbreak which ultimately took the lives of more than 100 patients while sickening hundreds of others.
Cadden was president and part-owner of the New England Compounding Center while Chin was the supervising pharmacist in the clean room where the deadly methylprednisolone acetate was produced.
The two were charged with racketeering, conspiracy, mail fraud and violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. The two were charged with second degree murder as predicate acts on the racketeering charge.
The jury was split on the second degree murder charges and Dearen notes that Stearns did not question the jurors when he was presented with evidence of the split votes. A unanimous vote was needed for conviction.
The two have now been charged with second degree murder in Michigan.
Dearen goes behind the scenes in describing the efforts of the prosecutors, Amanda Strachan and George Varghese to first put the complex case together and then to convince the jurors. He also describes the congressional efforts, largely futile, to bring the little known drug compounding industry under control. Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com