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Maury County Couple File Meningitis Lawsuit
Posted on November 23, 2012
A Maury County man and his wife have filed suit against the Massachusetts drug compounding firm being blamed for a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis.
The suit, which was transferred Wednesday to U.S. District Court in Nashville, charges that Basil J. McElwee was injected with a tainted steroid from the New England Compounding Center on August 20th and September 4th.
According to the suit, the injections were administered at Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center.
“Mr. McElwee was injected with the contaminated drug manufactured by the defendant,” the suit charges. “As a direct result of the wrongful conduct of the defendant, Mr. McElwee has suffered horribly and been terribly and painfully injured.”
According to the complaint, McElwee was hospitalized at Saint Thomas on September 28th and “it is not known when he will be discharged.”
In a response to the suit, lawyers for the Massachusetts firm denied any wrongdoing and said the drugs were compounded and dispensed “in compliance with the provisions of all applicable federal and/or state standards.”
According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 490 people have been sickened after being treated with the methylprednisolone acetate distributed by the Framingham, Mass., firm. Nationwide there have been 34 deaths, 13 of them in Tennessee.
The McElwee suit is the latest of more than 50 filed in state and federal courts across the country. It is the first, however, to land in U.S. District Court in Nashville.
In Davidson County Circuit Court alone, 13 suits have been filed by patients who contracted fungal meningitis after being injected with the spinal steroid. Additional suits have also been filed this week in federal courts in Minnesota and New Jersey.
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