Salon article outlines compounding pharmacy NECC’s deal with the Romney administration to monitor itself in the wake of enforcement actions brought in 2004:
“In October 2004, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy, a state regulatory agency reporting to Gov. Romney, offered to let NECC enter into a consent agreement that would have acknowledged professional misconduct by NECC warranting disciplinary action, a public reprimand and three years probation.
But in a letter dated Nov. 11, 2004, Paul Cirel, an attorney for NECC, argued that such disciplinary action would be “potentially fatal” to NECC’s business. In a footnote, he asserted, “Once disclosed, the reprimand will surely result in investigations/inquiries/investigations in those other jurisdictions. Regardless of the derivative actions taken, the attendant legal and administrative costs will be devastating.”
The letter added that instead of having the state monitor the company, NECC would be willing to “bear the burden of cost and monitoring and reporting compliance” in exchange for a non-disciplinary resolution.
The Board of Registration subsequently dropped the reprimand. Meanwhile, in 2005, NECC was the subject of another complaint. Nevertheless, the Board of Registration went forward with a Consent Agreement that was, according to Oliver, “even more advantageous to the company than was requested by NECC.”
The term of the “probation” would be one year, not three, and it was to be a non-disciplinary agreement that would not be reported to the National Association of State Boards of Pharmacy or other outside agencies.”
Oh, and:
The owners of NECC have made campaign donations both to Romney and to Massachusetts Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown, Salon has learned…
WCVB-TV in Boston has reported that NEC president Greg Coniglario hosted a fundraiser for Sen. Scott Brown, bringing in $37,000 for the Brown campaign against Elizabeth Warren. Conigliaro and members of his family have reportedly given $10,000 of their own money to Brown.
In July, Brown was one of 10 senators to sign a letter to the Drug Enforcement Agency arguing that regulations on the compounding industry should be loosened.
Conigliaro also contributed $2,500 to the Romney for president campaign.
Just because this guy is a Republican backer is no reason to hang this on Romney or Brown. The lax oversight continued into the Patrick administration. I think there’s a lot of blame to go around here.