Understanding the meningitis outbreak, in one post

Posted by Sarah Kliff on October 12, 2012 at 9:18 am

If you want understand what went wrong with the pharmacy in Massachusetts, whose drugs have caused a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis, the best place to start is a document titled “CPG Sec. 460.200 Pharmacy Compounding.”

The four-page memo is about as exciting as the title suggests. But stick with me here: This document is important because it is the one, single piece of paper that says what the Food and Drug Administration can and can’t do to regulate pharmacists who mix multiple drugs together to create a new formulation — known, in pharmacy terms, as compounding. It tells us about the authorities they may have had in this, specific case.
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