What was known then is that the compounding center was regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, but overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy. Going back years, multiple complaints had been filed and in 2004, the Board recommended a formal reprimand for NECC, but regulators folded after officials at the company complained the reprimand could be “fatal to the business.”

Shortly after the 2012 meningitis outbreak came to light, the director of the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy, James Coffey, was fired and its attorney, Susan Manning, was placed on leave. According to the Associated Press, they were accused of failing to investigate a July 2012 complaint from their counterparts in Colorado that the New England Compounding Center was violating its license by shipping drugs in bulk.

Could lives have been saved if they had acted? We’ll never know.

Then Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby testified in November 2012 before the state Legislature: “Multiple times between 2002 and 2012 (Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy) staff failed to take decisive action on NECC complaints that came to their attention. This raises the question of whether they could have prevented all or some of these tragic events. Poor judgment, missed opportunities and a lack of appropriate action allowed NECC to continue on their troubling course.”

Could this be the “final straw” that points out the typical Board of Pharmacy (BOP) is so politically inbred and impotent that maybe some changes will happen. Boards that have the same people sitting on them for DECADES..  Their primary charge is to protect the public health and they can’t seem to comprehend or react to the current day work environment — particularly in community/retail – of high volume, gross under staffing and Rx dept layout is typically nothing short of a fish bowl and the security against robberies is virtually non-existent.