ELK GROVE VILLAGE MAN SETTLES MALPRACTICE SUIT FOR $6.5 MILLION DOLLARS

ELK GROVE VILLAGE MAN SETTLES MALPRACTICE SUIT FOR $6.5 MILLION DOLLARS

A $6.5 million settlement has been approved by Cook County Circuit Judge Bill Taylor in a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed that doctors negligently failed to administer an appropriate vaccine after his spleen was removed.

After years of health problems, Carl Musillo was diagnosed with pneumococcal meningitis in 1995 at age 44.

Musillo claimed that his primary care physician, Dr. Mark Gillis, failed to administer pneumococcal vaccine although he knew Musillo had undergone a splenectomy in 1970 as a result of Hodgkin’s disease.

Musillo saw Gillis 15 times for various maladies, including infection, between 1992 and 1994, said Robert J. Napleton who represented the Musillos.

Musillo also alleged that the physicians at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center who arranged for the splenectomy failed to administer the vaccine on two occasions, in 1990 and 1993.

The Immunization Practices Advisory Committee of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that such vaccines be administered to adults who are unusually likely to develop pneumococcal infections or a serious complication of infection. This category includes persons with asplenia, Napleton said.

The case is Carl Musillo v. Mark Gillis, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, et al., No. 01 L 5848.