By Associated Press staff

Federal officials on Wednesday blamed unsafe working conditions and poor training for the death of a young Veterans Affairs medical center researcher in San Francisco who died after handling bacteria that cause meningitis. 

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found three serious violations at the lab that exposed Richard Din, 25, to the bacteria and led to his death on the way to the hospital on April 28.

In particular, OSHA chided the lab for allowing Din to work with the bacteria in the open rather than in a so-called biosafety cabinet, which isolates germs behind a protective screen and provides ventilation.

“Richard Din died because the VA failed to supervise and protect these workers adequately,” said Ken Atha, OSHA’s regional administrator in San Francisco. “Research hospitals and medical centers have the responsibility as employers to protect workers from exposure to recognized on-the-job hazards such as this.”

OSHA also said that lab workers, including Din, should have received meningitis vaccines and training on recognizing symptoms of the disease. Din wasn’t vaccinated and complained of headache, fever and chills after he left work on a Friday but did not seek medical help until his condition worsened the next day.

VA officials didn’t immediately return phone and email messages.

At the time of Din’s death, Dr. Harry Lampiris said a vaccine may not have saved Din because he was working with a strain of the disease resistant to vaccines. Lampiris didn’t return a phone call or email query.

OSHA spokeswoman Deanne Amaden said “the serious violation is because the VA did not provide vaccines to workers for other strains where there are vaccines available — based on the work they were doing.”

OSHA’s notice of violations requires the VA to vaccinate its lab workers against any dangerous germs they are working with, provide better training to recognize symptoms of illness, and mandate that work with disease be conducted in safety cabinets.

Meanwhile, a vaccine for the meningitis strain that killed Din may soon be available in the United States. Novartis AG won approval to sell its vaccine in Europe this year while it’s negotiating with U.S. regulators to do the same here. Other companies are also developing vaccines.

OSHA can’t fine other federal agencies as it can private companies.

A 2005 paper published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology — the most recent study of its kind — said 16 cases of probable laboratory-acquired meningitis occurred worldwide between 1985 and 2001, and eight were fatal.

Bacterial meningitis causes an estimated 170,000 deaths worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

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The death of a 6-year-old Massachusetts boy after a mystery E. coli infection continues to stump health officials searching for the source.

Owen Carrignan of Millbury died May 26 after developing hemolytic uremic syndrome, the most serious complication of infection with dangerous strains of E. coli bacteria. The first-grader was infected with E. coli O157:H7, the strain most often associated with illnesses tied to ground beef.

But Owen didn’t appear to have contact with hamburger or other beef before he became ill starting around May 20, said Derek S. Brindisi, the Worcester, Mass., director of public health. In fact, it’s still not at all clear what made Owen sick.

“It’s primarily a foodborne illness pathogen,” noted Brindisi. “But it could be food, it could be a secondary exposure, a cross-contamination or exposure to another animal or person.”

Owen's mother, Michelle Carrignan, told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that the boy spent the night at a friend's house. His father, Shawn Carrignan, separately said the boy ate a hot dog at a barbecue. But Brindisi said more recent interviews suggested that Owen already had symptoms before those events and that they were unlikely to be the cause. 

After becoming ill, Owen quickly worsened, eventually developing kidney failure caused by HUS.

“It should never happen, you know? A 6-year-old boy full of life,” Todd Carrignan, Owen’s uncle, told WHDH, an NBC affiliate.

Before his death, Owen was a healthy, active boy with a bright smile who loved the outdoors, playing sports and wrestling with his sisters, a family memorial said.

On Monday, a team of local health officials, with advice from state epidemiologists, had expanded their investigation of Owen’s death, Brindisi said.

They’re looking closely at his diet throughout the month of May, not just in the one- to 10-day incubation period for E. coli O157:H7.

Food samples from retail venues, including stores and restaurants, that may have provided food that Owen ate are being examined at state laboratories, said Brindisi, who declined to identify the specific foods being tested.

E. coli O157:H7 causes about 36 percent of the 265,000 infections caused by Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, known as STECs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Serious complications, such as HUS, are more common in children, the elderly and people with other health problems.

So far, there are no other reports of E. coli infection related to Owen’s, Brindisi said.

In many cases, the source of isolated E. coli infections is never detected. Only about 20 percent of E. coli cases are part of recognized outbreaks. Still Massachusetts health officials plan to exhaust all options.

“Each day, we learn new information,” Brindisi said.

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