Dr. Joseph Mollura began working full time as the medical director at the SCI Pittsburgh about four years ago. However, Dr. Mollura died on August 8, 2016 after he developed Legionnaires’ disease. His family filed a lawsuit on May 4, 2017 in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, alleging that Dr. Mollura developed Legionnaires’ disease from working at SCI Pittsburgh. The family filed suit against the state Department of Corrections and Capital Technologies, the company that was hired to provide water services to the prison. The family claims wrongful death, suggesting that the prison first detected high levels of Legionella bacteria in…
Chad Grant, the CEO of McLaren Flint Hospital, the facility at the center of the Flint Legionnaires’ Outbreak, released an extremely critical report as a response to a state health department order for the hospital to “correct conditions”. Grant accused state officials of “blaming and attacking” McLaren Flint, and treating it as if it were the sole cause of the Flint outbreak in order to deflect attention from themselves. He referred to the accusations as “unwarranted and unjustified”. Grant points to the Flint municipal water system, which changed its source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, as the driving force behind the…
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was previously prohibited from accessing documents about Legionella cases at McLaren-Flint Hospital due to a protective order. However, now the Michigan Court of Appeals has ordered the hospital to produce these documents. The Department was trying to obtain these documents to investigate the cases of Legionnaires’ disease caused by the contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. According to a spokesperson for Governor Rick Snyder – Anna Heaton – the Protective Order prevented the Department from performing their duties of protecting the public. The Hospital felt the Protective Order was necessary due to lawsuits…
Michigan Attorney General, Bill Schuette, filed additional charges, including two against former state-appointed emergency managers, on Tuesday, December 20th in relation to the Flint water crisis. Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose were charged on Tuesday with multiple 20-year felonies as a result of their failure to protect Flint residents from health hazards caused by contaminated drinking water. Additional Flint city employees, Howard Croft and Daugherty Johnson, were charged alongside Earley and Ambrose with felony counts of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses in the issuance of bonds to pay for a portion of the water project that led…
On September 1, 2016, State Correctional Institution (“SCI”) – Pittsburgh announced the presence of Legionella within its facility. However, the facility tested positive for Legionella as early as May of this year. SCI-Pittburgh’s medical director, Joseph Mollura (60) died of complications resulting from Legionella pneumonia on August 8, 2016. However, a May 12, 2016 report regarding testing performed at the prison on May 4, 2016 revealed that the cooling tower known as “No. 1,” which served the prison’s medical department, was found positive for Legionella. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends that any cooling tower that has 100 cfu/ml or more of bacteria…
Officials have updated the number of cases of Legionnaires’ disease associated with the La Quinta Inn & Suites in Memphis, TN. The Shelby County Health Department says that there are now seven confirmed cases of the disease among guests of the hotel, in addition to twenty-three possible cases. The hotel was shut down on September 22 after five former guests were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ and the outbreak was linked to the hotel. The hotel’s franchise owners worked with various health departments to eliminate the bacteria from the water supply. Now, the hotel is planning to reopen after a shutdown of nearly two weeks. No…