A salesman for the drug company blamed for a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak told an official at a Nashville clinic last year that because of pressure from regulators, patients’ names would have to be provided when placing orders from the company, but it didn’t matter if people named were the ones actually getting the shots.
Dr. John Culclasure’s account of the conversation became public in a court filing this week even as a congressional committee was discussing proposed legislation to prevent another outbreak like the one that has taken 55 lives, 15 of them in Tennessee.
Whether patient-specific prescriptions were provided to the now-shuttered drug compounding company has become a critical issue in the ongoing criminal investigation. Regulators have charged that the New England Compounding Center routinely shipped thousands of drug vials without legally required patient-specific prescriptions.
According to the filing, staffers at the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center — where Culclasure was medical director — subsequently simply submitted daily lists of patient names with their orders, but on at least one occasion did not do so. NECC filled the order anyway. The salesman had told the clinic that the Massachusetts pharmacy board was insisting on patient names.