Brighton Man Dies of Meningitis

An 87-year-old Brighton man reportedly died of meningitis on April 11, according to an article in the Press & Argus.

According to the article, the Michigan Department of Community Health confirmed that Joseph Ernest Rushlow died of meningitis symptoms.

This is the sixth Livingston County resident and 16th Michigan resident to die in the nation's fungal meningitis outbreak.

In October, State Health officials reported that a Brighton facility was one of four Michigan facilities that received shipments of steroid medication suspected of causing a fungal meningitis outbreak from the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Massachusetts.

Michigan Pain Specialists in Brighton, as well as Michigan Neurosurgical Institutes in Grand Blanc, Neuromuscular and Rehabilitation in Traverse City and Southeast Michigan Surgical Hospital in Warren, have all been working with health officials to identify and notify patients who may have received the medication through epidural injection between July and October.

A few weeks ago, Attorney General Bill Schuette requested a grand jury be convened to investigate whether NECC, broke state laws when it distributed tainted steroid injections to patients in the clinics.

"Hundreds of Michigan citizens and their families have endured terrible pain and deaths of loved ones suffering from illnesses caused by these tainted steroid injections," Schuette said.