A tragedy is a story where no one wins.
We have a tragedy unfolding with the current fungal meningitis outbreak. So far fourteen people have died as a result of contaminated steroid injections, and over a hundred have contracted the disease. This is clearly a tragedy for them.
The source of the meningitis has been traced back to New England Compounding Center, a pharmacy in Massachusetts that specialized in compounding. Compounding medications is the process of either mixing together multiple drugs, or changing the form of a drug. For example, if you crush a pill into a powder, then dissolve the powder in a liquid to make a syrup, that is compounding. In the case of NECC, they were taking a powdered medicine and converting it into an injectible liquid.
The meningitis outbreak is a tragedy for the owners and employees of New England Compounding Center as well. It is not a big company, and they just announced a recall of all of their products back to the beginning of the year. It is a pretty safe bet that they have ceased operations, and a pretty safe bet that they will not be restarting. Everybody who works there has just lost their job, and the owners have lost their investment in the company. Worse yet, they can all look forward to being called into depositions for years to come.
Now, the people at NECC certainly didn’t intend to start a meningitis outbreak. But due to somebody’s mistake, they could lose everything they have. All of them, including the ones who were off sick that day. I call that a tragedy for them as well.
The doctors and clinics that purchased from NECC are going to get sucked into this mess as well. After the owners of NECC are crushed by the litigation machine that is just starting to warm up, the doctors and hospitals who purchased the steroids are the nearest deep pocket around. They get to look forward to spending years fighting claims on their assets, over half of which will go to the attorneys.
The attorneys are the only ones who will profit from this situation.
I started out saying that a tragedy is a story where no one wins. I might have to refine that definition.
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