Indiana Victims Appeal Adverse Ruling

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Charging that the Feb. 22 decision by an Elkhart Superior was simply wrong, lawyers for some 80 Indiana victims of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak are asking the state Court of Appeals to allow them to appeal that adverse ruling.
Stating that the claims of the victims have already been pending for years, the motion notes that many of them are elderly.
In addition the motion filed by attorney Douglas Small states that parallel cases by other outbreak victims in St. Joseph County Court are moving in the opposite direction. An appeal is necessary to resolve several issues including "the conflicting state court orders."
The Elkhart victims, like others, were injected in their spines and other joints with a steroid, preservative free methyl prednisolone acetate, that was contaminated with a deadly fungus at the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center (ASC).
Charging that the clinic was negligent, the 12-page motion states that the drugs were also mislabeled and the names on the vials were not those of the actual patients.
The filing contends that it was the patients who were defrauded, not the U.S. Food and Drug Administration despite that Feb. 22 ruling by Judge Kristin Osterday.
Without a resolution of the conflicting rulings now, the motion concludes, patients will end up waiting even longer and much of the work done already, including ongoing efforts by medical review panels, will be for naught.
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