By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Friday, November 9, 2012 -
As
we’ve long suspected, it seems the negligence if not outright
malpractice behind the fatal meningitis outbreak tied to tainted
steroids was not confined to the Framingham compounding pharmacy where
the medicines were manufactured. The government regulators responsible
for partial oversight of that pharmacy were apparently guilty of same.
Interim DPH Commissioner Lauren Smith on Wednesday announced that the head of the state Board of Registration in Pharmacy has been fired, and a lawyer on his staff put on leave, for failing to investigate a complaint about the New England Compounding Center filed in July by Colorado’s pharmacy regulators.
Yes — July.
Colorado regulators accused NECC of violating its license by selling bulk medicines without patient-specific prescriptions to hospitals in that state, and notified James Coffey, director of the Massachusetts pharmacy board.
Coffey promised a “thorough review and analysis” and forwarded the package to a staff lawyer, Susan Manning, but he didn’t order an investigation and the matter was apparently abandoned. Even after the meningitis outbreak, Coffey and Manning didn’t inform anyone of the Colorado complaint.
Of course we can’t know with confidence whether a follow-up to the Colorado complaint — which did not center on drug quality — would have prevented anyone from getting sick.
But it is reasonable to assume that an inspection of NECC’s records and practices would have exposed what now appear to have been flagrant problems within the company. And it’s not as if this was an outfit with a squeaky clean record.
This represents the very definition of passing the buck and is a depressing reminder of how too much business is conducted inside the state’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. Only this time the consequences may have been deadly.
Interim DPH Commissioner Lauren Smith on Wednesday announced that the head of the state Board of Registration in Pharmacy has been fired, and a lawyer on his staff put on leave, for failing to investigate a complaint about the New England Compounding Center filed in July by Colorado’s pharmacy regulators.
Yes — July.
After some of the tainted medicine had already been distributed — but apparently before
another batch of tainted steroids was shipped, and certainly before any
link was made between the drugs and the outbreak of illness and death.Colorado regulators accused NECC of violating its license by selling bulk medicines without patient-specific prescriptions to hospitals in that state, and notified James Coffey, director of the Massachusetts pharmacy board.
Coffey promised a “thorough review and analysis” and forwarded the package to a staff lawyer, Susan Manning, but he didn’t order an investigation and the matter was apparently abandoned. Even after the meningitis outbreak, Coffey and Manning didn’t inform anyone of the Colorado complaint.
Of course we can’t know with confidence whether a follow-up to the Colorado complaint — which did not center on drug quality — would have prevented anyone from getting sick.
But it is reasonable to assume that an inspection of NECC’s records and practices would have exposed what now appear to have been flagrant problems within the company. And it’s not as if this was an outfit with a squeaky clean record.
This represents the very definition of passing the buck and is a depressing reminder of how too much business is conducted inside the state’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. Only this time the consequences may have been deadly.
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