The company is considering bankruptcy? There's nothing to consider. Bankruptcy was inevitable after the first death.

The company's management should face manslaughter charges. How many people have to die before they become criminals?

The tragedy is that most of the company's victims won't get the compensation they deserve.

Lawsuits charging negligence, malpractice and breach of implied warranty, provoking filings for bankruptcy, have been all but inevitable in the pharmaceutical poisonings associated with New England Compounding Center of Framingham, MA, as documented by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ten years ago, similar events happened in a very similar case. The same pharmaceutical, preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate, compounded by Urgent Care Pharmacy of Spartanburg, South Carolina, poisoned at least five patients receiving epidural, spinal injections, and two of them died. The contaminating fungus in that case, identified at the time as Wangiella dermatitidis, had been found in dead animals. Compounding failures were traced to improper operation of an autoclave used to sterilize equipment and supplies. [ http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/EnforcementStory/EnforcementStoryArchive/ucm095793.htm ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Urgent Care Pharmacy and its supervising pharmacist, Ken Mason, Jr., of Spartanburg, were sued by victims. Their insurers also sued, claiming that insurance coverages had been invalidated by willfully illegal practices at the compounding pharmacy, but those insurers lost in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuits revealed that insurance limits were on the order of only $1 million. Less than a week after the first lawsuit was filed by a victim, Urgent Care Pharmacy filed for bankruptcy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It is likely that New England Compounding Center had business liability insurance and that its part-owner and supervising pharmacist, Barry J. Cadden of Wrentham, MA, had professional liability insurance. It is possible that the insurers will challenge New England Compounding Center and Mr. Cadden, claiming that they were operating illegally. Massachusetts laws and regulations for compounding pharmacies differ from those of South Carolina, so insurers might prevail in Massachusetts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Victims and their relatives and survivors are also likely to sue physicians who treated them and medical centers at which they were treated. However, available insurance coverages plus any business and personal assets at sufferance might not be enough to compensate for now 20 deaths, for pain, suffering and loss of income in dozens of cases already traced to contamination and for costs of medical treatments.

No COMMENTS section for the article on the Boy Scouts?