Maryland Clinic Moves For Dismissal

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Maryland clinic where dozens of victims of a deadly outbreak were injected with fungus laden steroids is moving to have the remaining cases against it dismissed.
In a five-page motion filed today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. lawyers for the Box Hill Clinic in Abingdon sought approval from Senior U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel to file another motion for dismissal, citing evidence compiled thus far.
The clinic noted that it bought the tainted steroids from the same company that was selling its products to "some of the nation's most prestigious" health facilities. It was not "reasonably forseeable" that its products would cause illness and death, the motion states.
The suits are among hundreds filed in the wake of a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak caused by tainted steroids shipped from the now defunct New England Compounding Center.
"Box Hill defendants complied with the recognized standards of acceptable practice, the motion states.
The clinic lawyers also noted that even if patient specific prescriptions had been written for each of its patients, that would not have prevented the outbreak.
The motion applies to the handful of Box Hill cases that remain in federal court. Still more were filed in state courts in Maryland.
Overall the 2012 outbreak sickened 778 patients in more than 20 states. Seventy-six of them died. In Maryland 26 patients were sickened and three died.
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