A lab chief’s sentencing for meningitis deaths is postponed, extending grief of victims’ families

By ED WHITE
Associated Press

HOWELL, Mich. (AP) — A 12-year saga over a fatal national meningitis outbreak still isn’t over. A man whose specialty pharmacy caused the outbreak in 2012 was supposed to be sentenced Thursday in Michigan for involuntary manslaughter. But the hearing was suddenly postponed until May when a different judge took the case. Relatives of some of the deceased in Michigan were prepared to give victim-impact statements. Barry Cadden operated New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts. It shipped tainted painkillers to clinics around the country. More than 700 people in 20 states were sickened with meningitis or other debilitating illnesses and at least 64 died.