Article from Boston Globe Notes That New England Compounding Center is under Investigation by State and Federal Authorities After Meningitis Outbreak

Compounding pharmacy oversight is questioned after meningitis outbreak

By Liz Kowalczyk and Kay Lazar

| Globe Staff October 06, 2012

Compounding pharmacies started as small mom-and-pop stores that mixed hard-to-find medications for local doctors and their patients who had allergies, difficulty swallowing, or otherwise could not take mass-produced drugs.
But amid growing drug shortages in the pharmaceutical industry, some large compounders such as the New England Compounding Center stepped in and ­expanded their business far beyond the industry’s homespun roots.
The Framingham company, whose products are implicated in a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis that sickened more people Friday, listed dozens of products online and apparently took thousands of orders from doctors, clinics, and hospitals in at least 23 states, a transformation that regulators have not kept pace with, critics and even some industry executives said.
To read the rest of the article click here.