Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. Their weapon- the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. Their motive- greed. Their death count- 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and deception, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.
If you had back pain in mid-2012 and went for a steroid injection in Tennessee, New Jersey, or twenty-one nearby states, you might be dead today. "Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center, which were injected into some 14,000 patients. Once inside a human host, the fungus travelled 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. It killed with impunity and became the biggest drug contamination outbreak in modern American history.
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.
