July 9, 2013, 8:25 pm
(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) After last year's outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to bad back pain steroids from the New England Compounding Center in Framingham - which left 61 people dead and over 740 sickened - Massachusetts legislative leaders Tuesday rolled out a bill aimed at making sure nothing like it ever happens again.'What we're doing here today is taking an industry that has operated in the shadows of legitimacy and shining light on them and holding them accountable,' said Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy), the Senate co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health. 'They were operating in a manner that was dangerous and deadly, and it's incumbent on us here at the state to make sure that that does not continue. This legislation and the regulatory framework that will follow make sure that that does not happen.'His House counterpart, Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez of Boston, said, 'While NECC is at fault, we as a state could have done a better job of preventing this outbreak at this scale.'The legislation voted out by the committee would require new specialty licenses for in-state and out-of-state pharmacies selling sterile compounded drugs; more reports on what drugs pharmacies are producing and in what volumes; a revamped state Board of Pharmacy; and perhaps most important, far more frequent state inspections.Todd Brown, executive director of the 250-member Massachusetts Independent Pharmacy Association, representing the state's non-chain pharmacies, said the group supports the legislation and thinks if enacted, one of the single biggest changes will be 'the inspection of compounding pharmacies. They'll have unannounced inspections that will create big change and make sure that they're operating safely.' Under prior law, businesses like NECC could go years without being inspected if they had no complaints and no change of ownership. Brown said the association was reviewing the fine print but in general supported the bill. 'There might be tweaks, but I think we're definitely on the right track.'However, state Rep. Keiko Orrall, a Lakeville Republican, said the legislation was railroaded through the committee with legislators only seeing the complex bill 14 hours before they were called to vote on it, and 15 minutes before a news conference. 'The full committee hasn't even seen the report to be able get behind and support it. I appreciate the work of the committee, and what they have done, but I haven't even had a chance to process what they are putting forward,' Orrall said. But Keenan said it's a strong bill that will address the issues of regulation, licensing, and inspection revealed by the NECC scandal. 'This legislation is about accountability,' Keenan said. 'It's about saving lives.'With videographer Rich Mazzarella
Tags: Boston, Peter Howe, New England Compounding Center, MA compound pharmacy bill
