In one of this week's most anti-climatic news story, the Center for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally confirmed
what everyone knew: The origin of the deadly meningitis outbreak was
fungus found in steroid shots produced by the New England Compounding
Center (NECC) in Framingham, Mass. With 20 already dead and hundreds
sickened so far, no group seems more outraged than members of Congress who are demanding answers
from the FDA about how it could have failed so badly to protect the
public from this clearly-tainted operation. The FDA? The
chronically-underfunded and understaffed agency (check out former FDA
Commissioner David Kessler's testimony in 2008), the budget of which is currently threatened thanks to Congress' misplaced obsession with federal deficit cutting? (This reminds me of that VP debate
exchange over Libyan embassy security, when Rep. Paul Ryan tried to
lecture Vice President Biden over defense cuts while, as Biden pointed
out, Ryan's own budget would cut embassy security by $300 million.)
When it comes to "compounding pharmacies," however, money's not the
only issue. Following a six-year, million dollar lobbying campaign by
the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, Congress in 2007 prohibited
the agency from exercising proper authority over these companies. This
effort included "hundreds of its pharmacists canvass[ing] Capitol Hill
urging lawmakers to abandon the proposed legislation [to increase FDA
oversight]." (What a sight that must have been! My mind goes right to
that famous Monty Python skit with the pharmacist shouting behind the counter "Who's got the pox? Who's got a boil on the bum?")
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