This is a really cogent and accurate explanation of the situation. I understand why the lab was run by the DPH - we have an adversary system and it's not really fair for one side of the adversarial process (the police) to be testing the substance.

You fail to mention that Doohkan was not properly vetted and a very poor background check failed to show that she LIED on her resume and was not qualified for the position. Supervision was the MAIN REASON she was allowed to corrupt the procedure. IF (possibly) supers did THEIR job, they could have obtained more funding and more employees by SLOWING the process and IMPROVING the results thus forcing the pols to provide the necessary HELP.

Thank you for this commentary - it brings up aspects of this crisis that, until now, the general public has been largely unaware of - most notably, Melendez-Diaz and the strain that it put on the entire system, most notably the chemists. After Melendez-Diaz, it wasn't uncommon for chemists to spend 50% of their time during any given week prepping info packets for the ADA's, travelling to court, waiting around to testify, or on the stand (with emphasis on the "waiting around to testify" - they'd often receive a summons to show up in court at 9:00am and not be called to the stand until late in the afternoon, if at all... talk about wasting taxpayer money). People don't like to hear it, but Melendez-Diaz, combined with the budget cuts, contributed to this problem. People often respond to that with a sarcastic, "oh, yeah, sure - throw more money at the problem and it will go away." Of course it's not that simple. But underfunding, understaffing, and the strain on the chemists' time were all significant factors here. It's just math. Think about it: There was a backlog of 13,000 samples. If, hypothetically, the lab was caught up on their testing (or at least close to it), could Annie Dookhan have gone into the evidence safe and helped herself to 90 samples at a time without following proper protocol? No, because there wouldn't have been 90 samples for her to take. And granted, the system itself was broken too. Ideally, the lab would've been relatively caught up and each chemist would have been assigned their share of the samples that came in from week to week - just for example, let's say 25 samples each - in a situation like that, it would've been impossible for Annie to test 100 samples at a time unless she deliberately stockpiled her workload for an entire month. And even if she had engaged in the type of behavior she's accused of, the damage would have been minimal compared to what it is now. And yes, Rita, you are correct. The theory behind having the DPH run the lab was that they would be impartial in the criminal justice process. Not sure how that worked out in practice, but that was the theory anyway. There is an inherent bias in having the State Police run the lab that's testing the samples they themselves bring in.

And a big giant YES to this: "The money now spent cleaning up this mess will be far greater than any once saved." People ask how this could've been prevented. And again, they don't want to hear this answer, but properly funding and staffing the lab would've certainly helped.

This is BS. I heard the same excuse about divorce court when I went through it. It was dishonest, political, and a setup for lawyers to make money off of the unfortunate parties. None of that was due to lack of funding. If you throw money down a toilet it's still a toilet and it still has the same thing in it that a toilet usually had.

If you have hacks or incompetents as managers, paying them more will not help. You need good people, and you need tight procedures, and you need verification, and none of that is particularly related to money.