BMS and UMC sued for Poisoning Death

Wang Xiaoye's family sued the Bristol Myers-Squibb, employer of Li Tianhe, and University Medical Center, the hospital where Wang was treated before his painful death.

Sue Epstein of The Star-Ledger reported,

"A talented software engineer and a loving father of a toddler would be alive today if only one of the world's biggest drug makers, and an accredited medical center had just done their jobs," said Robert Mongeluzzi, one of the attorneys representing Wang's estate. "Bristol-Myers knew or should have known that Li was an unstable person who should never have had access to deadly thallium.

"And the hospital and its professional staff, including doctors, should have listened to their patient who feared for his life. Instead they enabled her time and access to finish what she had started. This may sound like a story line right out of Agatha Christie, CSI or HOUSE, but it is tragically true."

BMS is on the hook because it granted Li unlimited and unsupervised access to fatally toxic materials, even after documented cases (unrelated workplace hostility which resulted in a court issued restrainting order) proving Li was a volatile individual/ a ticking bomb.

UMC has a deeper pile to dig. Wang, with poisoning symptom, told doctors the wife, Li, poisoned him. Yet UMC granted Wang's unsupervised visit to Wang until his last day, probably allowing Li to finish what she hadn't able to achieve. In addition, UMC did not take it seriously even after a nurse figured out the source of poison, thallium. Wang's physical condition deteriorated soon after he admitted himself to the hospital and had no way to protect himself from Wang in the 10 some days leading to his death on Jan 26, 2011.