Guilty plea in HCV case

This story has been reported extensively in the national media but in case you missed it, yesterday in NH, David Kwiatkowski, 33, pleaded guilty to drug diversion activity since 2002. He admits to serially infecting at least 45 patients with HCV in multiple states. At Exeter Hospital, he admitted to swapping out syringes about 50 times and this resulted in 32 known infections.

He also infected one veteran at the VA Medical Center in Baltimore with his strain of HCV–a veteran who had no risk factors for HCV. This is a tragic case of lax hospital procedures and drug addiction at its worst. “It was all me,” he told authorities. “I’m killing a lot of people.”

The plea agreement court papers are here but are a bit blurry. Zooming helps.

It’s so easy to transmit HCV in health care settings even when the needle is replaced but a vial is not–as the illustration below shows. In Kwiatkowski’s case, the needles and syringe vials were tainted with HCV. And his victims were older and sicker; their immune systems were less able to clear the virus. Misery multiplied.