Judicial Panel Centralizes Meningitis Litigation in Massachusetts

A judicial panel ruled on Feb. 12 that all suits filed against a pharmacy linked to a multi-state fungal meningitis outbreak will be heard in federal court in Massachusetts. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has assigned Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston the more 120 suits filed against the New England Compounding Center. The fungal meningitis outbreak, discovered in Tennessee in September, has been blamed on a steroid produced by the NECC. The outbreak has spread to 20 states, sickening more than 650 and killing 46.