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 Glenn Adam Chin, 46, had been a supervising pharmacist at the
now-defunct New England Compounding Center of Framingham,
Massachusetts. It produced tainted steroids that sickened 700 people
in 20 states in the worst outbreak of fungal meningitis recorded in
the United States, officials said.
Chin has been charged with mail fraud in connection with shipping
17,000 tainted vials, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Boston. The contaminated vials were sent to more than 76 facilities
in 23 states. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, typically was
injected into patients to ease back pain.
U.S. prosecutors said they became concerned Chin was a flight risk
when he bought tickets for a flight to Hong Kong.
"We owe it to the victims in this case not to lose him to a foreign
jurisdiction," said George Varghese, a prosecutor with the
healthcare fraud unit overseen by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in
Boston, during a hearing in U.S. District Court.
Chief Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal ordered Chin to surrender his
passport, post a $50,000 unsecured bond and remain under house
arrest until Sept. 16 when his family returns from Hong Kong.
Paul Shaw, Chin's defense attorney, said the former NECC pharmacist
had planned to attend a wedding in Hong Kong, and had no plans to
flee the United States. Shaw said Chin is a stay-at-home father for
his two children, ages 2 and 6.
Chin is the first person to face criminal charges related to the
outbreak, which pushed NECC into bankruptcy and led to stricter
national regulation of custom medication makers.
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If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000
fine.
Authorities accused Chin of instructing pharmacy technicians to
mislabel medication to indicate it was properly sterilized and
tested. Medications compounded by NECC were prepared, filled and
held under unsanitary conditions, according to an affidavit from
Food and Drug Administration Special Agent Benedict Celso.
A federal bankruptcy court in July approved a deal to settle scores
of lawsuits against NECC, which could pay out as much as $100
million to victims and their families and creditors.
(Reporting by Scott Malone and Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Richard
Valdmanis and Mohammad Zargham)
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