In a day and age when vaccinations are so commonplace, more than three people dying of the same relatively rare disease can trigger public outcry and the fear of epidemic. In this instance, it has also led to very serious criminal charges, including federal murder.
Over 750 people around the country became ill as a result of tainted steroid injections. 64 of them died of viral or bacterial meningitis, while the remaining suffered from other medical ailments like joint or spinal infections. 23 of those who lost their lives were from Michigan.
But how did this happen? How did so many people suffer from such an uncommon, and horribly unpleasant, illness? After all, meningitis cases are pretty few and far between these days. And the disease is not one to be taken lightly. It causes intense headaches, fever, muscle rigidity and, when allowed to progress, convulsions, delirium and death.
Steroid injections produced for treating pain were contaminated
As it appears, this wasn’t the result of an accident. The employees of the New England Compounding Center are accused of using expired ingredients in the creation of the steroids, and also not following cleanliness standards. As a result, a great deal of the steroid injections they produced for the purpose of treating pain, were contaminated.
Fourteen people in New England were arrested, and now face serious charges. And for two of them – Barry Cadden, who is a cofounder of the now defunct New England Compounding Center, and Glenn Adam Chin, the pharmacist who was in charge of the sterile room where the tainted steroids were produced, the world as they know it may have just ended.
Both Cadden and Chin are charged with federal racketeering charges, for causing many deaths by “acting in wanton and willful disregard of the likelihood that their actions would cause death or great bodily harm”, along with 25 counts each of second degree murder charges, for the many deaths that resulted from their negligence.
The remaining twelve individuals arrested and charged in this case are facing an assortment of other, slightly less serious charges, including interstate sale of adulterated drugs, and fraud charges.
Because Michigan was one of the states hardest hit by this horror, with 265 individuals affected, including 23 deaths, Attorney General Bill Schuette traveled to Boston to be present when the formal indictments were announced.