The co-founder and co-owner of a now-closed compounding pharmacy near Boston could spend the rest of his life in prison after being arraigned on federal charges that he caused a massive outbreak of fungal meningitis two years ago.
Barry Cadden, the co-founder, co-owner, president, and head pharmacist of the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts; was arrested on Wednesday morning along with 10 other NECC executives and employees. This was the culmination of a nearly three-year federal investigation into how 751 people got sickened from contaminated injections of steroids. Half of those sickened caught meningitis, and 64 of them died.? Three others were also named in a massive indictment under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that was unsealed on Wednesday. The furor led to new federal laws that tightened oversight of compounding pharmacies, which had previously been more or less unregulated.
Read the indictment here. It alleges that from 2006 to 2012, Cadden and NECC sent out large quantities of compounded injectable steroids despite knowing they had been produced in unsanitary conditions. In 2012 alone, one of its clean rooms flunked every surface and air cleanliness test during the first 38 weeks of the year, and 37 of those weeks. Even worse, NECC employees and managers allegedly sent out batches of medication that had either expired or had never been properly tested. Many of those drugs were made by a pharmacy technician whom Cadden and other NECC executives knew had given up his license. The indictment also charges that NECC distributed numerous compounded drugs without matching prescriptions–and was therefore operating as a drug manufacturer that should have been subject to Food and Drug Administration oversight. In many cases, NECC sent out prescriptions with fake patient names such as “Big Baby Jesus,” “Fat Albert,” and “Wonder Woman.”
Cadden is charged with racketeering, mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud the FDA, and sending mislabeled and adulterated medicine into interstate commerce. The highlight, though, is the racketeering count, which spells out 68 overt acts. If prosecutors can prove two of those acts–any two of them–Cadden faces a minimum of 20 years in prison. The most serious allegation blames Cadden for the deaths of 25 patients in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia who received contaminated injections. The head of the clean rooms, Glenn Chin, was also charged with those deaths, and is also named as a major player in the racketeering scheme. Prosecutors contend that since Cadden and Chin acted with “extreme indifference to human life,” those deaths amount to second-degree murder–and if a jury agrees, Cadden and Chin could be sentenced to life in prison. For that reason, they’re in jail without bond, at least for now. Four other defendants are charged with racketeering. However, it’s a near-certainty that some, if not all, of them will seek plea bargains at some point.
Also indicted were NECC’s majority owners, Doug and Carla Conigliaro, who co-founded NECC with brother-in-law Cadden in 1998. The Conigliaros are charged with illegally transferring $33 million in assets between eight different accounts after the judge handling NECC’s bankruptcy ordered all of their assets frozen.
Carmen Ortiz, the U. S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said that Cadden and others fostered a culture at NECC in which “production and profit were prioritized over safety.” The result, she said, was a pharmacy that was “thoroughly contaminated” and produced drugs in “filthy conditions,” resulting in an “unprecedented national tragedy.” Stuart Delery, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said that the indictment spelled out “an extreme and appalling disregard for human life.” According to several legal experts, that disregard led prosecutors to see this case not as a violation of regulations, but cause for a racketeering indictment.
Several of the victims and victims’ families let their feelings known loud and clear–those responsible should go to prison. Let’s hope they get their wish. Ortiz should be applauded for doing all she can to ensure those responsible for this horrible crime stay in prison for a very long time.
Let us know your thoughts at the Liberal America Facebook page. Sign up for our free daily newsletter to receive more great stories like this one.
Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
