Incredible reporting of a huge tragedy almost no one has heard about. At least it was all news to me. It is a horrifying tale of greed and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. Everyone needs to read and beware of medications sourced by manufacturers who find loopholes and cut corners on their safety measures to save costs. ( )

This is a book that will give us all something else to worry about--compounding pharmacies, which I had never heard of before reading this book, which is billed as a medical thriller/true crime book.

New England Compounding Center (NECC) was a compounding pharmacy. Technically, a compounding pharmacy is a pharmacy that is supposed to make ("compound") one drug for one patient based on one specific prescription from one doctor. However NECC used aggressive sales techniques to market to hospitals and clinics, and basically turned itself into a drug "manufacturer," which are subject to much more stringent regulations. Compounding pharmacies are basically subject to no federal regulation, and are left to the province of overworked/understaffed state pharmacy boards. In this case NECC was manufacturing and selling huge supplies of a number of drugs to hospitals and clinics all over the country, basically unregulated. Somehow, patient prescriptions would be manufactured afterwards, many to fictitious patients like Micky Mouse. (To be fair, NECC is not the only compounding pharmacy that has turned itself into a drug manufacturer).

One of the drugs NECC manufactured was a steroidal pain killer that is injected into the spine primarily for people with back pain. Thousands of patients at hundreds of clinics and hospitals across the US were injected with this drug from NECC. Unfortunately, because of unqualified staff, unsanitary lab conditions, including surfaces contaminated with mold, and corporate greed, many patients received injections of the drug that were contaminated with a fungus which causes fungal meningitis. Nearly a thousand patients developed fungal menigitis, and more than 100 died. Of the survivors, many suffer significant and permanent disabling health consequences. (If you are interested read the review that first appears on the Amazon page for this book which was written by one of the survivors).

Because the victims were geographically scattered, and because fungal meningitis is rarely seen, it took a while to diagnose what the problem with these patients was. Once it was determined that they were suffering from fungal meningitis (which often led to strokes or brain aneurysms), it took a while to discover what was causing the outbreak, which stretched across the country. The book describes a real medical mystery as doctors and public health officials across the country scurried to find the culprit. The book also covers the ensuing criminal trials of the owners of the pharmacy. While it is heartening that they were ultimately convicted, it is disheartening that both previous and subsequent attempts to enact legislation to regulate compounding pharmacies and bring them under the purview of the FDA have failed---the compounding pharmacy industry has an extremely stong and effective lobbying force.

The book provides a series of questions to ask your doctor if you are ever prescribed something from a compounding pharmacy. Surprisingly, within a few days of my finishing this book, the eye doctor prescribed an eye solution for my husband from a compounding pharmacy, and I was able to put those questions to practical use.

Recommended.

4 stars ( )