Elet Neilson, age 53, of Layton, a former emergency room nurse who admitted to tampering with controlled substances intended for patients and diverting the drugs for her own use, will serve 60 months in federal prison. As a result of the tampering and diversion, Neilson admitted infecting seven (known) patients with Hepatitis-C 2B. Hepatitis C, which is a viral disease, is primarily transmitted through blood exposure. There are different genotpyes. One variant, Hepatitis-C 2B, makes up only 8 to 10 percent of all Hepatitis C found in humans in Utah, according to the indictment filed in the case. Between July 2013 and November 2014, Neilson was employed at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah. As a nurse, Neilson had access to controlled substances, including medication intended for patients in the emergency room. As a part of a plea agreement reached in September 2019, Neilson admitted that on multiple occasions, she tampered with hydromorphone and morphine, diverting the drugs for her own use. According to the plea agreement, Neilson admitted that by tampering, diverting, and using the drugs, she acted with reckless disregard for the risk to other people, including placing people in danger of death or bodily injury, and did so under circumstances that manifested extreme indifference to that risk. In late 2014, according to charges filed in the case, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Utah Department of Health began an investigation into a cluster of Hepatitis C 2B diagnoses in the Ogden region, which eventually focused on patients seen in the emergency room at McKay-Dee Hospital while Neilson was working there. The investigation ultimately determined that seven patients, each of whom were given intravenous opioid pain management drugs handled by Neilson before or during their administration, were infected with not only the same genotype of Hepatitis-C 2B as Neilson, but the same sub-genotype.
