State pharmacy regulators on at least two occasions in the past decade displayed indifference in their oversight of a troubled Framingham specialty pharmacy that has now been blamed for a national fungal meningitis outbreak, according to documents obtained by the Globe Tuesday.
At the same time state and federal regulators were investigating New England Compounding Center for problems with sterile drug preparation, the company’s lead pharmacist, Barry Cadden, was chosen to serve on a state pharmacy board task force to write new rules for compounding pharmacies.
Comments
The thing is "good people" are often people we have "good relationships" with, and "good relationships" are not predicated on honesty, ethics, character, or expertise -- they're simply people who, as an individual, make us feel good. So, did the board choose "good people", people the most powerful members of the board had "good relationships" with, probbly people who were annointed members of the "tribe", if you will? If so, was that a result of a lack of effectiveness in their approach to their jobs, or a sign of something deeper and more hidden -- perhaps a security of position and power on the surface that "enabled" (as in alcoholics often have enabler relationsips) self-dealing below. The thing is, in a culture that follows the "good people" model it's hard to tell the difference.
The MA DPH model is one of neopitism: The DPH Supervisors have less experience and education than their subordinates, and have risen far past their level of competence. But their rise is most frequently due to their friendships with the 'Governor' or other local politicians.
I can't help seeing this situation as being, at least partly, a reflection of the "don't regulate me" crowd of Romney Republicans. I keep wondering who was called in the Governor's office on these matters. Because this is at least partly a criminal investigation, I would hope that there would be a subpoena or two of telephone records, of political contributions and such. If Eric Fehrnstrom and the boys had not stolen ALL the electronic records of the Romney Administration, these questions would be more easily answered. Emails TO the Governor's office should be accessible. I see pictures of computers being seized from Jill Kelley's home because of a sex scandal. I hope the same thoroughness of investigation will be applied where rogue anti-regulation businessmen who caused severe illness and death are the targets.
I think it's more likely that poor regulation and oversight is the result of the cronyism that exists in a state where there is no meaningful political opposition.
No one should be surprised that the state is lax with regulation over-sight. Studies and articles have been comparing Massachusetts DPH statistics with other states for the past 20 years, and they have questioned the failure of MA DPH Regulators! As long as the MA regulatory process was subpar due to poor management skills & knowledge - nothing was ever done about it.
The end result is the tipping point was finally reached with catastrophic events: poor management at the State Lab, poor management & questionable skills overseeing the Pharmacy Board, and just last week there is another nursing home death.
It was only when the deaths occurred nationally - that we finally see queries about DPH management.
I wonder how MA ranks in the latest nursing home ratings. At one point years ago statistics on each state's nusing home costs and quality of care were published in USA Today. I remember that MA had very high costs but low quality of care, while (as I remember it) FL had low cost and high quality. It would be good to see if MA has improved in the many years since (must have been 10 to 15 years ago).