Brighton man suffers from fungal meningitis after contaminated injections

BRIGHTON, Mich. (WJBK) - Barry Cadden's company's contaminated injections made many patients sick and in some cases cost them their lives.

As a result, life hasn't been the same for Tom Darin of Brighton since 2012.

"Everyone wants to point fingers, no one wants to claim responsibility for it, but yet still we suffer," he said.

Darin contracted fungal meningitis from a contaminated steroid shot that he and many others received from the Michigan Pain Specialist clinic in Brighton.

"They injected me a few times and it seemed to work, and then the last time they injected me, didn't seem to work at all," he said.

Darin had to be rushed to the hospital to surgically remove a sack of fungus growing on his spine, and into his bones.  More than 700 others across the nation were also infected or killed.

Michigan was among the hardest hit with 19 people killed and more than 200 sickened.

"A lot of people are going through a lot worse things than I am," Darin said. "But we're all suffering as a result of this and they don't seem to hold him accountable for anything."

Now five years later, Barry Cadden, the co-owner of the pharmacy in Massachusetts where the drugs were made, was sentenced to nine years behind bars.

"This guy gets a nine-year sentence," Darin said. "Well what's that, that's peanuts. I have a death sentence."

Darin says that won't make up for all he has suffered, let alone the hundreds of other cases.

"Kidney disease, I've had a heart attack, cardiovascular pulmonary issues," he said. "And on and on and on."

Darin has also lost hearing in one ear and suffers memory loss. He says he's won some compensation, but it's not nearly enough to pay back all the medical expenses he owes.

"They just let him off the hook as far as I'm concerned," Darin said.

Another supervisor is scheduled to go on trial in September Glenn Chin, who apparently oversaw the rooms where the drugs are made.

He has pleaded not guilty.