Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease
An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it.

Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.

"Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC chief Barry Cadden called his company the "Ferrari of Compounders," it was a slapdash operation of unqualified staff, mold-ridden lab surfaces, and hastily made medications that were injected into approximately 14,000 people. Once inside some of its human hosts, the fungus traveled through the tough tissue around the spine and wormed upward to the "deep brain," our control center for balance, breath, and the vital motor functions of life.

Now, investigative journalist Jason Dearen turns a spotlight on this tragedy--the victims, the heroes, and the perpetrators--and the legal loopholes that allowed it to occur. Kill Shot forces a powerful but unchecked industry out of the shadows.
"1136703989"
Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease
An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it.

Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.

"Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC chief Barry Cadden called his company the "Ferrari of Compounders," it was a slapdash operation of unqualified staff, mold-ridden lab surfaces, and hastily made medications that were injected into approximately 14,000 people. Once inside some of its human hosts, the fungus traveled through the tough tissue around the spine and wormed upward to the "deep brain," our control center for balance, breath, and the vital motor functions of life.

Now, investigative journalist Jason Dearen turns a spotlight on this tragedy--the victims, the heroes, and the perpetrators--and the legal loopholes that allowed it to occur. Kill Shot forces a powerful but unchecked industry out of the shadows.
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Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease

Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease

by Jason Dearen
Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease

Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease

by Jason Dearen

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Overview

An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it.

Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.

"Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC chief Barry Cadden called his company the "Ferrari of Compounders," it was a slapdash operation of unqualified staff, mold-ridden lab surfaces, and hastily made medications that were injected into approximately 14,000 people. Once inside some of its human hosts, the fungus traveled through the tough tissue around the spine and wormed upward to the "deep brain," our control center for balance, breath, and the vital motor functions of life.

Now, investigative journalist Jason Dearen turns a spotlight on this tragedy--the victims, the heroes, and the perpetrators--and the legal loopholes that allowed it to occur. Kill Shot forces a powerful but unchecked industry out of the shadows.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780593085790
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 02/23/2021
Sold by: Penguin Group
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 8 MB

About the Author

Jason Dearen is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Associated Press and was a 2018-2019 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. His work appears regularly in hundreds of newspapers and websites, including The Washington Post, The Guardian, USA Today, and The New York Times. He has twice been nominated by the Associated Press for the Pulitzer Prize. Dearen grew up in California and attended the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He lives with his wife, a law professor.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Prologue xi

Chapter 1 Patient Zero 1

Chapter 2 The Ferrari of Compounders 13

Chapter 3 A Slow-Moving Mass-Casualty Event 33

Chapter 4 Bulletproof 53

Chapter 5 Shadow Industry 71

Chapter 6 Six Confounding Cases 87

Chapter 7 A House of Cards 93

Chapter 8 October Deluge 109

Chapter 9 An Opportunistic Killer 131

Chapter 10 The Case of a Career 141

Chapter 11 The Hail Mary 151

Chapter 12 Depraved Indifference 167

Chapter 13 Trial 179

Epilogue 207

What to Ask Your Prescriber About Compounded Drugs 221

Acknowledgments 225

Notes 229

Index 247

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