This Governor has never been an advocate for law enforcement.  The state labs have been grossly under-funded just as police training.  This should come as no surprise.

This Governor is more concerned in protectng the rights of illegal immigrants and providing the necessary support and funds for law enforcement.

Just like his pal Obama-blame someone else. In this new culture, no one accepts responsibility. A once great President said that the buck stops with him. Not so with this bunch.

And the question remains, what would have happened if the Governor (Patrick and Romney) and the Legislature had properly funded (staffed) the Lab. By trying to close the WMass lab, the Governor was saying it wan't needed. How can that be if the testing backlogs at the JP labe were so long? They were trying to consolodate to save money--money that was needed to do tests.

The " blame game" is the result of electing cowardly, inexperienced men  who really don't like governing, or explaining to the people

the truth of what is really going on, because they don't really know what's going on.

Suggestion; Stop and think before voting . Thankfully the Governor is not running again, but the mayor probably will.

Take the opportunity to vote out of office all of the current egomaniacs still in office. These men and women care nothing about governing, or following the constitution.

Gee, right out of the Obama playbook...BLAME SOMEONE ELSE, NOT MY FAULT!....a "rogue chemist" sounds good.  How far up should the buck stop????

http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061160902 this is our government....

"undetected" is a poor excuse.  The administration is responsible for the checks and balances to manage performance.  It has come across that other staff members were concerned but management was not in the loop for a long time.  Too much at stake to not be on top of this activity.  You don't see this kind of issue very often in the private sector, especially going on for such a long time.  Too much at risk.  It's a shame to see so many people affected by this and what it will do to the justice system.  The taxpayer will lose again in the end.  Sorry Governor, stop making excuses and it's time to shake up your administration - or time for somebody new to take over.

Several points: 1) Yes, there was a "rogue chemist" but a management system has to be able to detect one, 2) You don't manage by ONLY getting "good people" who get "good people", because "good people" can drift to "mediocre" or "bad" and turn in terrible results, and even "good people" make mistakes, and those mistakes MUST BE DETECTABLE, 3), The solution is not to have the Governor always in the state, that is silly -- had the Governor never travelled it is likely the problem would not have changed one iota, 4) The tests in jeopardy may be ALL of them because Ms. Dookhan had "unsupervised access" to the evidence lockers; you can hypothecate that she did not mess up other samples but you can't be sure, 5) Yes, I'm sure underfunding contributed, but "good people" always produce quality work, 6) Yes, these days "good people" who produce quality work sometimes (or perhaps, often) get laid off or fired for insisting on producing quality work and not produciing more as a consequence; Hey, that's life in modern America, 7) In addition to checks and balances management needs attain exposure to the "facts on the ground"; Lower level managers will try to make it appear that things are running perfectly, as will most individual contributers; The bearer of bad news (the "messenger") is often shot; So how will upper management find out the "real facts", 8) Actually, people are not "good people" and "bad people", people are "human" people and are subject to human nature (to understand what "human nature" involves just watch a few daytime soap operas (and "human nature" is really just "animal nature"), 9) Culture, civilization, logic, laws, procedures, policies, are an overlay onto "human nature" that helps increase smooth relationship for people in groups, but the operant foundation is still "human nature", 10) It is likely that many other departments in the state are organized around the "good people" model; That model is especially dangerous because it discourages checks and balances and oversight (an insult to "good people"); Therefore, the opportunity for a person to get in and work his own personal agenda is amplified, 11) It is likely that a number of people knew about this problem for quite a while because other chemists or low level managers might have known, and certainly, people being put away for drug offenses for which they knew they were not guilty would have told others, and, therefore, it is likely that some on Beacon Hill knew, 12) Lastly, perhaps the state could find a number of books on management theory and practice that it could recommend its managers read -- the goal being to get everyone on the same page in terms of what should be an effective management model.

The crime lab scandal is eclipsed by the renewables sector untold story of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. MA, the US incubator for renewable energy companies, reigns as the nation's leader in failing renewable companies. Evergreen Solar, Beacon Power, Konarka Technologies of MA have all filed for bankruptcy protection from the public. MA A123 Systems'(failed Fisker Karma battery, rescued by China), and American Superconductor's technologies are funded by American's that is now property of China. It appears that public merit is not the driver behind the MA renewable sector, or behind the Patrick Administration's litany of green laws that have spawned green business ventures now failing, and Cape Wind that would fail. Citizens are already left on the hook for multi-millions in MA, while we have only created Fat Cats, not clean or reliable energy sources. Flo-Design (wind turbine) Advisor Ian Bowles as Secretary of Energy won $8.3 mill federal stimulus and $1.7 million from MassCEC's Clean Energy Center) for Flo-Design. The Clean Energy Center, with Founding Chairman Ian Bowles, also as acting MA Secretary of Energy and Environment, also approved a $3 million financing package for FloDesign. We haven't heard from Flo-Design since. Undersecretary to Bowles at MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the Commissioner of the Department of Energy Resources, Phil Giudice, was also VP with stock options at EnerNOC that was awarded 20% of Massachusetts ARRA total stimulus by a $10 million dollar contract. Forbes May 14, 2012 "Who's a Fat Cat?" "Who is the most over paid?" "The most overpaid executives are at Comverge and EnerNOC, both in absolute millions of dollars, and as a percentage of market capitalization." Update: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomkonrad/2012/05/14/whos-a-fat-cat/ Taxpayer-funded A123 Green Energy Company Handed to Chinese Lindsay Leveen Breitbart.com Big Government 8 Aug 2012 A 123 Systems, the “green,” federal stimulus-funded lithium ion battery manufacturer, announced atrocious quarterly results today. Most expected that A 123‘s results would be dark red. What was a surprise was the simultaneous announcement that the company had entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Chinese industrial group, Wanxiang, that will give the Chinese control of the company. Remember that A 123 is the battery supplier to electric car-maker Fisker, and is also an investor in Fisker. It’s also the third US lithium ion battery manufacturer to go under. The other two advanced “green” battery failures were ENER1 and Valence. But the other two simply expired; there was no resuscitation attempt by a large Chinese industrial group. http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=48736 Publicly-funded and failing green companies, with Patrick Admin Public Officials as CEOs, Presidents, VPs, stockholders, Advisors, Directors, CFO, etc., is the costly legacy of the Patrick Administration.

The "Drug lab crisis may follow Patrick."

Not if the Globe has anything to do with this story. The State Laboratory catastrophe is front page news worthy - but, the Globe places the article in the “B Metro” section.

How come Deeval the national political hack wannabe features so prominently in this on-going scandal?  This is a law enforcement case first, with professional chemist standards a step behind.  Blame games feature budget cuts for personnel in this case apparently. But with the Globe trying to zip Deeval into the national hacks ranks, the tale takes a rather weird slice. Where is the Attorney General - the state's chief law enforcement officer - in this situation?  It is very difficult to believe that the former state lab chemist allegedly involved was not overseen to at least some extent by police officials, if not by state lab higherups.  It seems more likely there be some sort of collusion involved if this woman is as guilty as media reports portray her (without a bit of a defense on her part). Was that perhaps a collusion on the part of police officials anxious for as high a drug case conviction record as possible?  The accused chemist's behavior certainly has an aura of pro-police about it in media reports. And 60,000 mishandled drug samp;les involved in 34,000 separate cases not noticed for five or six years?  And now we have months and years of bureaucratic butt protection efforts reported in this story. Yet, it is the governor who gets the focus not the attorney general.  And what about the public safety department chief? Isn't that person the overall commander of the state police, about whose drug cases some of this scandal seems to involve?  The Public Safety secretary is a gubernatorial appointee, so the link to Deeval is established. But the attorney general is elected in her own right, as the state's chief law enforcement officer. Something rather fishy about this whole case. Could the Globe be out to keep Deeval from being named to a national post if Barry the O gets re-elected?

Who was managing this lab? Did I miss this in the story? Underfunding would account for the backlog the lab had but not for the actions of a rogue chemist compromising 60,000 samples. Whoever was in charge of the lab was supposed to ensure protocol was being followed. Staff members were emailing the health commissioner but the lab manager didn't know what was going on? Assuming the manager reported to the health commissioner, neither did their jobs. It's despicable to think innocent people are in prison due to the actions of this chemist. She should get a life sentence.

Rest assured that if this was a private sector melt down like the one that happened last winter with National Grid, where the CEO of that entity was (rightly) rippped apart, the governor and other political leaders would be lined up in front of TV cameras all day long saying how outraged they are and calling for resignations and hearings.

The governor's executive management skills are open to legitimate questions. There are holes in his administrative governance process that enabled this oversight to snowball into a major problem. What procedures does he have in place to ensure departments under his direct control are working properly? Contrary to what some may think, It's not aways about politics. Once in a while competence does matter.