CRE Infection After Endoscopy Lawsuit — Legal Rights for Patients Who Developed Carbapenem-Resistant Infections

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Olympus Scope — Infection Claims

Hospitalized With an Infection After a Scope Procedure?

If you were told it was “just a complication,” Olympus’s federal guilty plea — and $85 million in penalties — tell a different story. In two minutes, you can know whether your case qualifies.

ACTIVE LITIGATION. 250+ patients · most recent filing: June 2026 · deadlines vary by state — some as short as one year.

Were you hospitalized with an infection within 30 days of an endoscopy or scope procedure?

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Free · confidential · no fee unless there is a recovery · answering doesn’t commit you to anything. Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

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Stefanie A. Murphy & Matthew T. Marin

Partners

You’ll get a straight answer even if it’s “you don’t qualify.” Everything you share is confidential — even if you never hire us. No fee unless there is a recovery; costs are advanced and reimbursed only out of a recovery. If you do qualify, our Olympus scope litigation team requests the medical and hospital records — you don’t chase them.

Qualification depends on what the medical records show — the scope involved, the infection, and the timing. We’ll review them and give you a straight answer either way.

CRE — Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae — is the primary infection documented across multiple Olympus scope outbreaks in the United States. If you developed a CRE infection after an endoscopy requiring hospitalization and IV antibiotics within 30 days of a scope procedure, you may have a product liability claim against Olympus Corporation. CRE bloodstream infections are associated with mortality rates approaching 50%. Marin & Murphy Law Firm is investigating CRE infection claims nationwide.

Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

What Is CRE and Why Is It Linked to Olympus Scopes?

Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae — CRE — is a family of dangerous bacteria that have developed resistance to carbapenem antibiotics, which are among the last-resort drugs used to treat serious infections. The CDC designated CRE an urgent public health threat in 2013. CRE bloodstream infections are associated with mortality rates approaching 50%. (Source: CDC MMWR Vital Signs, March 5, 2013, cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6209a3.htm.) When CRE enters the bloodstream, standard treatment options are severely limited — the very drugs physicians would normally turn to do not work.

CRE is the predominant pathogen documented across every major U.S. Olympus scope outbreak for a specific reason: CRE naturally colonizes the human gastrointestinal tract. It is present in exactly the anatomical areas that Olympus duodenoscopes, gastroscopes, and colonoscopes access. When a scope is not completely disinfected after a procedure on a CRE-colonized patient, residual CRE can survive in the scope’s complex internal channels — particularly the biopsy channel and suction channel — and be transmitted to the next patient who undergoes a procedure with the same device.

Research confirms that scope channels are the most difficult components to completely disinfect. An 8-year retrospective study at a Dutch tertiary-care hospital found that by 2022, 94.7% of patient-ready scopes showed measurable bacterial contamination of any type — and that patient-origin bacteria (those transmitted from prior patients) were present at rates ranging from 14.3% to 47.5% annually. Every manufacturer-recommended intervention failed to produce a meaningful reduction.

(Source: van der Ploeg et al., Gut, March 2024, PMID 38182137.) Standard high-level disinfection leaves approximately 15% of patient-ready duodenoscopes contaminated even when hospital staff follow manufacturer instructions exactly. (Source: Larsen S, et al., EClinicalMedicine. 2020;25:100451. PMID: 32954234.) The specific types of CRE documented in Olympus scope outbreak cases include: multidrug-resistant E. coli, documented at Virginia Mason Medical Center; OXA-232 (blaOXA-232) carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, documented at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center; KPC (Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase); and CRE of unspecified subtype documented at additional hospitals named in the Senate HELP report.

Each subtype is distinct in its resistance mechanism but shares the core feature of CRE: resistance to the antibiotics of last resort.

Which Olympus Scope Outbreaks Involved CRE?

CRE or carbapenem-resistant organisms were the documented pathogen in every major confirmed Olympus scope outbreak. The following outbreaks represent the core of the causation record in this litigation:

Virginia Mason Medical Center (Seattle, WA): 32 patients infected with multidrug-resistant E. coli between November 2012 and August 2013. Seven died within 31 days of positive culture. By March 2015, 16 had died. Four of eight Olympus duodenoscopes tested were culture-positive. No breach in the hospital’s high-level disinfection protocol was identified. The investigation concluded that the existing manufacturer-recommended HLD protocols were inadequate.

(Source: Ross et al., Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, September 2015, PMID 26092616.)

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA): 17 patients affected by blaOXA-232 carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae. 9 confirmed active infections, 7 asymptomatic carriers. 2 confirmed deaths. Approximately 179 patients potentially exposed. No deviation from FDA or manufacturer reprocessing recommendations was identified. (Source: Humphries et al., Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2017, PMID 29579235) Senate HELP Committee Findings (January 13, 2016): At least 250 patients worldwide contracted potentially deadly infections from contaminated duodenoscopes — explicitly stated to be a likely significant undercount.

Multiple U.S. hospitals were named in the report. (Source: Senate HELP Committee, “Preventable Tragedies,” January 13, 2016.)

What Did Olympus Know About CRE Transmission Through Scopes?

The Olympus enforcement record establishes that the company did not file the adverse-event reports that federal rules required. In December 2018, Olympus Medical Systems Corporation pleaded guilty in federal court to three counts — and former senior executive Hisao Yabe to one count — of distributing misbranded medical devices, paying $85 million in penalties. Olympus admitted in court that it had failed to file required adverse-event reports — including known infection events linked to scope contamination — to the FDA.

(Source: DOJ Press Release, December 10, 2018; Case No. 2:18-cr-00727-SRC, D.N.J.) The timeline of the FDA’s enforcement record is critical to understanding what Olympus knew and when. In February 2015, the FDA issued its first public Safety Communication acknowledging 75 Medical Device Reports involving approximately 135 patients filed between January 2013 and December 2014 alone — before any public warning was issued. (Source: FDA Safety Communication, February 19, 2015.) The Virginia Mason outbreak began in November 2012.

Olympus was receiving reports of CRE infections linked to its correctly-reprocessed scopes years before the FDA issued any public communication. In a March 9, 2018 Warning Letter (MARCS-CMS 546986), the FDA cited Olympus Medical Systems Corporation for failing to comply with a Section 522 postmarket surveillance order issued October 5, 2015: as of February 20, 2018, zero sites had been enrolled in the required Sampling and Culturing Study.

In a March 15, 2023 Warning Letter (MARCS-CMS 654013), the FDA documented that Olympus had not investigated complaints of cracked MAJ-2315 distal end covers for roughly two years — another pattern of ignoring known defects. In October 2025, Olympus admitted that prior reprocessing protocols for its current-generation TJF-series duodenoscopes were insufficient — and that 10X magnification tools were required to detect component damage that had never previously been disclosed as a requirement.

Two confirmed deaths and five serious injuries were linked to those current-generation devices. (Source: Olympus Urgent Field Safety Notice, October 2025.) The legal argument: Olympus did not file required adverse-event reports about infections linked to its scopes and continued selling devices with inadequate cleaning instructions.

Does a CRE Diagnosis After Endoscopy Qualify Me to File?

CRE is the pathogen most frequently documented across the Olympus scope outbreaks. If you received a CRE diagnosis after an endoscopy, colonoscopy, or bronchoscopy, the following confirmed intake criteria apply:

Notice of exposure? If you received a notice of exposure after an Olympus scope procedure, you may qualify even without a confirmed infection diagnosis — contact us to review your situation.

A confirmed CRE diagnosis from a blood culture or tissue culture that identifies the specific organism and resistance profile is among the strongest forms of causation evidence available in these cases. The specific subtype — NDM-1, OXA-232, KPC — matters for causation analysis because each subtype appears in specific documented outbreak clusters. Contact Marin & Murphy today for a free case evaluation: +1-888-348-2735.

What Should I Do If I Was Diagnosed With CRE After an Endoscopy?

If you were diagnosed with a carbapenem-resistant infection after a scope procedure, the following steps are critical: 1. Request your blood culture and sensitivity reports. The culture report is the single most important document in a CRE case. It should identify: the specific organism (E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, etc.), the resistance profile confirming CRE classification, and the antibiotic susceptibility results.

The specific CRE subtype (NDM-1, OXA-232, KPC) may align with a documented outbreak cluster at the facility where your procedure was performed. 2. Request the original procedure report from the endoscopy, colonoscopy, or bronchoscopy that preceded your diagnosis. Specifically request the scope model and serial number. Olympus device model numbers include TJF (duodenoscopes), CF (colonoscopes), GIF (gastroscopes), and BF (bronchoscopes).

3. Obtain your complete inpatient hospitalization records including ICU records, discharge summary, and IV antibiotic administration records. These establish both the infection diagnosis and the severity of illness.

4. Check whether your facility has been named in any outbreak investigation or whether you received any communication from the hospital regarding your procedure. If your facility was named in an outbreak investigation, or you received a notification from the hospital, contact us immediately. 5. Contact a CRE infection attorney before your filing deadline. Marin & Murphy Law Firm is investigating Olympus CRE infection claims for patients in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

The firm associates with locally licensed co-counsel to pursue claims nationwide. Contact us at +1-888-348-2735. The consultation is free and creates no obligation.

Matthew T. Marin, J.D. — Admitted in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts

Stefanie A. Murphy, J.D. — Admitted in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts

Qualifying infection types

• Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE)
• NDM-1-producing E. coli
• ESBL-producing organisms
• Klebsiella pneumoniae
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• VRE
• MRSA
• Sepsis (with hospitalization + IV antibiotics within 30 days)
• other multidrug-resistant or healthcare-associated bloodstream infection confirmed by culture

Frequently Asked Questions: CRE Infection After Endoscopy Lawsuit

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