Meningitis-linked firm sold drugs without prescriptions: emails
By Toni Clarke and Aaron Pressman
BOSTON | Sat Oct 13, 2012 7:56pm EDT
(Reuters) – The drug-mixing company at the heart of a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak solicited bulk orders from physicians and failed to require proof of individual patient prescriptions as required under state regulations, emails to a customer show.
Reuters reviewed more than a dozen emails that show the New England Compounding Center, contrary to state rules, sold drugs without requiring physicians to supply individual patient prescriptions.
The customer confirmed that NECC supplied the clinic with drugs without patient names or prescriptions.
NECC, based in Framingham, Massachusetts, distributed thousands of vials of a contaminated steroid that has put 14,000 people at risk of contracting meningitis and killed 15 people.
The emails support assertions made this week by state pharmacy regulators that the compounding firm, which was authorized to deliver products only in response to patient-specific prescriptions, had violated its license in Massachusetts.
https://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/13/us-usa-health-meningitis-pharmacy-idUSBRE89C0FL20121013