BOSTON (AP) — A pharmacist who oversaw the sterile clean rooms at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy responsible for a deadly meningitis outbreak was arrested Thursday as he was about to board a flight for Hong Kong, federal officials said. 
 
 Glenn Adam Chin, left, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, walks with his attorney Paul Shaw, right, after appearing in federal court, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, in Boston.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Glenn Adam Chin, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, walks away from federal court after making an appearance, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, in Boston. The pharmacy, which... (Associated Press) 
 
 Glenn Adam Chin, left, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, walks with his attorney Paul Shaw, right, after appearing in federal court, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, in Boston.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Glenn Adam Chin, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, didn't properly sterilize or test equipment and concealed the unsafe practices, federal investigators said. 
 
 The pharmacy, which custom-mixed medications in bulk, has been blamed for a 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed 64 people. About 750 people in 20 states developed meningitis — an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord — or other infections. Michigan, Tennessee and Indiana were hit the hardest. 
 
 Chin, 46, of Canton, was arrested at Logan International Airport. He was charged with one count of mail fraud, but federal prosecutors said it is part of a larger criminal investigation of Chin and others. He is the first person to be charged in the inquiry. 
 
 During a brief federal court hearing Thursday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney George Varghese said the investigation was ongoing. "We are looking at Mr. Chin for a host of other criminal conduct," he said. 
 
 Chin's attorney, Paul Shaw, called the charge "absolute nonsense." He said Chin does not dispute that the steroids were contaminated, but said, "No one has a good understanding of the source of the contamination." 
 
 "Mr. Chin feels horrible about the consequences of this," Shaw said. 
 
 Chief Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal released Chin pending trial, but ordered him confined to his home. 
 
 Prosecutors said Chin was involved in compounding the contaminated methylprednisolone acetate, or MPA, that caused the outbreak. 
 
 They allege that Chin participated in a scheme to fraudulently cause one lot of MPA to be labeled as injectable, meaning that it was sterile and fit for human use. The lot was shipped to Michigan Pain Specialists in Brighton, Michigan. 
 
 After receiving the drug, Michigan Pain Specialists doctors injected it into patients, believing it to be safe. As a result, 217 patients contracted fungal meningitis, and 15 of them died, according to the affidavit. 
 
 In an affidavit, a special agent with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Chin used numerous unsafe practices while producing the medication, including improper sterilization and improper testing. Agent Benedict Celso said that Chin also "instructed pharmacy technicians to mislabel medication to indicate it was properly sterilized and tested." 
 
 Celso also said Chin instructed pharmacy technicians to "fraudulently complete cleaning logs" at the end of the month "purporting to show the rooms were properly cleaned and maintained when in fact they had not been." 
 
 A woman whose husband contracted meningitis after getting a tainted injection at the Michigan clinic welcomed the criminal charge. 
 
 "They should take every one of them and put the same contaminated injection in their back," said Iona "Nell" Rye, of Maybee, Michigan. 
 
 She said her 74-year-old husband, Alfred, had been in excellent health before he received the injection in August 2012. He has recovered but still has some residual effects, she said. 
 
 "He doesn't have the same strength. He's off balance," she said. 
 
 The New England Compounding Center, based in Framingham, just west of Boston, gave up its license and filed for bankruptcy protection after it was flooded with hundreds of lawsuits. Attorneys for its creditors late last year announced a preliminary settlement with a victim compensation fund worth more than $100 million. 
 
 Shaw, Chin's attorney, said his client was at the airport with his family because he planned to attend a wedding in his wife's native Hong Kong, not to flee the country. 
 
 "This was a publicity stunt," Shaw said of the arrest. 
 
 He said Chin's wife, two young children and his mother boarded the plane to Hong Kong after he was arrested. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press reporter Ed White contributed to this report from Detroit. 

 A pharmacist from the Massachusetts company linked to tainted drugs that killed 64 people was arrested Thursday as he prepared to leave the country, becoming the first person to be criminally charged in an ongoing federal investigation. 
 
 Glenn Adam Chin, 46, who prosecutors allege supervised the preparation of fatally contaminated medicine at now-bankrupt New England Compounding Center, was taken into custody at Logan Airport, where he had a ticket to Hong Kong. 
 
 It was the latest turn in a medical scandal that left hundreds of patients sickened, made headlines nationwide, and sparked hundreds of civil lawsuits. 
 
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 “I am so mad about this, because this could have been prevented,” said Anna Adair, 51, who developed an infection in her spine caused by black mold after receiving contaminated injections at Michigan Pain Specialists. Adair said she was upset about the possibility that Chin was trying to flee the country to avoid responsibility for any role he had in the outbreak. 
 
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 “If this guy only knew all the people who died and the pain we went through, he wouldn’t leave the country. He would stand up and say, ‘I am sorry about it,’ and not try to run and hide.” 
 
 Chin, who lives in Canton, pleaded not guilty to a single count of mail fraud Thursday, was released on $50,000 unsecured bond, and is under house arrest. He agreed to surrender his passport and must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. 
 
 His attorney, Paul Shaw, scoffed at the implication that his client was fleeing, saying Chin was headed to a family wedding with his 66-year-old mother, his wife, and his young children. He called Chin’s airport arrest a ploy by prosecutors for media attention. 
 
 “It was orchestrated by the government to have all this,” he said during the hearing. 
 
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 Shaw said Chin had round-trip tickets purchased ahead of time, which the government knew about. Chin was never told he was under investigation, said Shaw, nor was he interviewed. 
 
 Prosecutors said if convicted, Chin faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 
 
 Assistant US Attorney George Varghese said his office could not take the risk that Chin would leave the country and not return. 
 
 The US attorney’s office and the Justice Department’s consumer protection branch have been investigating New England Compounding since a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak began in fall 2012. Prosecutors said 751 patients fell ill after receiving contaminated medicine, and 64 of them died. 
 
 “These people have suffered tremendously,” said Kim Dougherty, managing attorney in theBoston office of Janet, Jenner & Suggs LLC, who represents about 100 victims. 
 
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 Several clients, she said, have lost relatives, and others have lost livelihoods. People once physically active now use wheelchairs; store owners were forced to sell their businesses. 
 
 The first criminal charge in the investigation reassured her clients the government is taking the case seriously, she said. 
 
 “It was a bit of a relief, a sign that things are moving forward and the government is still doing this investigation, and in all likelihood, will be indicting the people who are responsible for all the deaths and the illnesses,” Dougherty said. 
 
 A US attorney’s office spokeswoman declined to say whether more charges were expected, saying only that the criminal investigation is ongoing. 
 
 Attorneys associated with the Framingham pharmacy did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. 
 
 According to the criminal complaint filed by Benedict Celso, a special agent for the Food and Drug Administration, Chin supervised four pharmacists and 10 pharmacy technicians in so-called clean rooms, and was personally responsible for compounding steroid stock solutions. 
 
 “During the course of this investigation, I have learned of numerous unsafe practices employed by Chin at NECC while producing supposedly sterile medication,’’ Celso wrote. “These unsafe practices included improper sterilization and improper testing of supposedly sterile medication. Moreover, to conceal these unsafe practices, Chin instructed pharmacy technicians to mislabel medication to indicate it was properly sterilized and tested.’’ 
 
 Chin was in charge on June 29, 2012, when one batch of methylprednisolone acetate was made. Chin, the federal complaint alleges, “directed that filled vials be sent out of the clean room for shipment to NECC customers.’’ 
 
 On Aug. 7, 2012, Michigan Pain Specialists in Brighton, Mich., ordered 400 vials of the material, the complaint alleged. New England Compounding sent the requested vials, each of which included the abbreviation for “injectable’’ on the label, indicating the medicine “was sterile and fit for human use,” the complaint said. 
 
 Over the next two months, doctors at the Michigan clinic injected 625 patients with the compound, the complaint alleges. After receiving the injections, 217 patients contracted fungal infections; fifteen of them died, according to the complaint. 
 
 After the hearing, Chin’s attorney called the allegations in the complaint “absolute nonsense.” 
 
 He said he did not dispute that the contaminated medication was compounded on Chin’s watch, but said officials have never determined the cause of the contamination. 
 
 “Until the government can tell you what the cause of the contamination was, it was hard to say it was under Mr. Chin,” Shaw said. “Once the vials left that clean room, and then were shipped, it was no longer under his responsibility.” 
 
 Adair received injections of the compound that were shipped to Michigan in summer and fall 2012. 
 
 By October, she was in too much pain to walk. She spent 41 days in the hospital receiving antifungal treatment, and while she feels better almost two years later, she has lingering symptoms. 
 
 Lower-back pain radiating down her legs makes it difficult to walk or bend down to tend her beloved flower and vegetable gardens. 
 
 “I don’t do what I want to do anymore,” she said.
– A pharmacist linked to a meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people in 2012 was arrested yesterday as he tried to leave the country. Glenn Adam Chin oversaw the mold and bacteria-infested "clean rooms" at the New England Compounding Center, and investigators accuse him of covering up unsafe practices, the AP reports. He was arrested as he tried to board a flight from Boston to Hong Kong and is now under house arrest and has had to turn in his passport. Chin, the first person arrested in the case, was charged yesterday with one count of mail fraud—relating to a contaminated steroid injection labeled as sterile—but prosecutors say they are looking at a "host of other criminal conduct." Some 751 people developed fungal meningitis after receiving contaminated injections, and many survivors were left disabled. "I am so mad about this, because this could have been prevented," a Michigan woman who developed a spine infection from a contaminated injection tells the Boston Globe. "If this guy only knew all the people who died and the pain we went through, he wouldn't leave the country," she says. "He would stand up and say, 'I am sorry about it,' and not try to run and hide." Chin's lawyer calls the bust a "publicity stunt" and says he was just going to a family wedding.