Thursday, December 13, 2012

Mass. Gov. to announce big changes in cabinet 4 secretaries have left cabinet posts Including Department of Public Health


  • 12:29 PM EST Dec 13, 2012
    Except---

    John Polanowicz, president of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston, will replace Bigby in running the largest cabinet department in state government with an annual budget of about $8.6 billion.

    Among the agencies overseen by Bigby is the state Department of Public Health, which has been at the center of the drug lab crisis. Annie Dookhan, a former chemist at the lab, has been accused of manipulating drug tests involving 34,000 individuals over a nine-year period.

    The agency also has come under scrutiny in the wake of a deadly nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak linked to a steroid produced by Framingham. Mass.-based New England Compounding Center. The company was regulated by the state Board of Pharmacy.

    House Republicans had recently called for Bigby's resignation, citing what they called "poor management" of the crises. But Patrick responded by expressing his full confidence in Bigby, a Harvard Medical School professor who was named to the cabinet post in 2007

    Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/news/politics/Mass-Gov-to-announce-big-changes-in-cabinet/-/9848766/17763178/-/format/rsss_2.0/-/6865piz/-/index.html#ixzz2F09AYKbG

No comments: