Saturday, December 1, 2012

Who is liable for the meningitis outbreak from tainted steroids? - FindLaw

Who is liable for the meningitis outbreak from tainted steroids? - FindLaw

$10 million meningitis suit filed by Moneta woman


A Moneta woman with fungal meningitis filed a lawsuit this week in Roanoke Circuit Court, as the number of local legal cases continues to mount in the deadly national outbreak blamed on tainted steroid injections.
Michelle Powell was sickened in the outbreak after being treated at Insight Imaging in Roanoke with one or more doses of the steroid injections made by New England Compounding Center, according to the complaint filed Monday. The suit, which names both the compounding center and Insight, seeks $10 million.
Powell's suit marks the 12th filed locally since the outbreak was discovered in October. All of the cases have named New England Compounding, the Massachusetts pharmacy that produced the steroid shots. And most have also sought to place blame on Insight, the Roanoke outpatient clinic that administered the shots. Spokespeople for both companies have declined to comment on the legal proceedings.
As of Monday, the outbreak has sickened 510 people in 19 states and is blamed in 36 deaths, according to the latest count by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. In Virginia, 51 cases and two deaths have been recorded
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Sen. Richard Moore to Join Compounding Pharmacy Panel


Meningitis outbreak: Cases moved from state to federal court

4:46 PM, Nov 30, 2012

Lawyers for the drug compounding firm blamed for a deadly nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis are moving forward with a strategy to get the growing number of lawsuits consolidated in federal court and want a Boston-based judge to preside over all of them.
Federal court records show that a total of 37 cases originally filed in state and county courts have been transferred to federal courts across the country at the request of lawyers representing the New England Compounding Center. The lawyer for the company, headquartered in suburban Framingham, says it wants the cases eventually to be consolidated in Massachusetts.
That would include six suits originally filed in circuit court in Nashville and subsequently transferred to U.S. District Court here.
Forty other cases against the company were filed in federal courts to begin with, pushing the total number of pending federal suits over 70. Dozens of additional suits still remain in local courts, including seven in Davidson Circuit Court. Lawyers for the compounding firm have predicted that the final total will top 400.
In several of the transferred cases, New England Compounding’s lawyers have stated that their ultimate goal is to have all of the cases consolidated in Boston before U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, who currently has a dozen cases assigned to him.
“Judge Saylor has the judicial experience needed to steer this anticipated massive litigation on a prudent course to an expeditious conclusion,” New England’s attorney wrote in a recently filed brief.
“That’s what their plan is,” said Nashville attorney Randy Kinnard, who represents Colette Rybinski of Smyrna, the widow of Thomas W. Rybinski , who was the first patient to be diagnosed with fungal meningitis. He also represents nine other victims.

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In wake of meningitis outbreak, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute explains compounding

11/28/2012 3:01

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff


Hundreds of fungal infections linked to injectable drugs made by a Framingham specialty pharmacy have sparked questions among regulators, hospitals, and patients about the role such drugmakers play in providing crucial drugs.
In an effort to educate patients about its drug compounding efforts, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has produced a video that goes into its pharmacy, showing how drugs are prepared and what steps the hospital takes to ensure that drugs are safe and sterile. Compounding is a little-known corner of pharmacy that involves preparing individualized doses for patients, but the company at the center of a major public health crisis, New England Compounding Center, was apparently acting more like a drug manufacturer, providing large batches of drugs and shipping them nationally.
Dana-Farber’s compounding pharmacy prepares 950 sterile products a day, including chemotherapy, anti-nausea medication, and intravenous

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