US pharmacist linked to deadly meningitis outbreak held en route to Hong Kong
Massachusetts lab's failure to sterilise or test equipment led to 64 deaths, prosecutors allege
A pharmacist whose alleged hygiene failures at a lab in the US state of Massachusetts are being blamed for a meningitis outbreak that killed dozens of people has been arrested as he was about to board a flight for Hong Kong, US federal officials said.
Glenn Adam Chin, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Centre, didn't properly sterilise or test equipment and concealed the unsafe practices, federal investigators said.
The pharmacy, which custom-mixed medications in bulk, has been blamed for a 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed 64 people. About 750 people in 20 US states developed meningitis - an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord - or other infections. Michigan, Tennessee and Indiana were hit the hardest.
Chin, 46, was arrested at Logan International Airport in Boston. He was charged with one count of mail fraud, but federal prosecutors said it was part of a larger criminal investigation of Chin and others. He is the first to be charged in the inquiry.
During a brief federal court hearing on Thursday, Assistant US Attorney George Varghese said the investigation was continuing. "We are looking at Mr Chin for a host of other criminal conduct," he said.
Chin's attorney, Paul Shaw, called the charge "absolute nonsense". He said Chin does not dispute that the steroid medication was contaminated, but added: "No one has a good understanding of the source of the contamination… Mr Chin feels horrible about the consequences of this." He said his client was at the airport with his family because he planned to attend a wedding in his wife's native Hong Kong, not to flee the country.
"This was a publicity stunt," Shaw said of the arrest. Chief Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal freed Chin pending trial, but ordered him confined to his home.