Hello Everyone! I hope all is well with you. This summer is going by so fast and I just keep getting busier and busier. I’m at the pool with my kids as I write this post. One of their friends asked them to go swimming and here we are.
Last night I watched 60 minutes and I was horrified to learn the drug company, New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc. had manufactured an injectable steroid (MPA) that was contaminated. How was this discovered? Good question.
It was discovered when there was an unusually large outbreak of Meningitis. The company has recalled the drug, but they maintain they have no knowledge on how this could have happened. However, one of their employees at the time confessed that the company got greedy and cut some corners; the way I interpret that is the company cut corners sterilizing their product.
It must be noted that at the time NECC also owned a recycling plant right next door. Gee…I wonder how things got contaminated…but of course, I’m speculating.
Now, because of the way NECC manufactured their product they fly under the radar of the FDA. A change occurred in the law in 1998 where the FDA no longer monitored those companies that manufactured this form of the drug.
How unfortunate, because people who have been injected with this contaminated drug are dying. NECC has declared bankruptcy, but not before they pulled millions of dollars out of the company.
That makes me angry. The executives should be giving that money to the victims and helping them. Instead, they took the money and kept it for themselves.
How in the world, were they able to do that? What kind of society do we live in that tolerates this kind of abuse? The only answer that I can think of is the executives were tipped off and removed the money before the accounts were frozen. Why aren’t they in jail?
It saddens me to think that these corrupt executives don’t care about their victims, and I’m hoping that the government puts much more stringent guidelines on companies that manufacture drugs.
Of course, that won’t bring back the lives that have been lost, will it?
For more information about this click on the link below.
http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/outbreaks/meningitis.html
Thanks for stopping by and if you have any thoughts on how we can guarantee the medication that we receive from the hospital is sterile, I’d love to hear them!
