Compounding pharmacy 'got greedy,' former employee says

Former employees of a Framingham compounding pharmacy at the center of a national meningitis outbreak are claiming the New England Compounding Center brazenly broke the rules.

Darrel Clark is one of more than 700 people nationwide sickened after receiving a contaminated steroid injection manufactured by NECC.

"I feel they're criminals. It's like they gave out poison knowing it was poison but didn't care because they were making money, he said.

Forty-eight people have died, and Clarks family worried the 50-year-old father would be one of them.

For the first time in the six months since the fungal meningitis outbreak, those who worked inside the compounding pharmacy are speaking out.

Joe Connolly, a former technician, told 60 Minutes, The underlying factor is that the company got greedy and over extended. And we got sloppy and something happened.

Connolly says mold was found in the clean room a dozen times during a span of three years.

NECC was supposed to manufacture drugs for individual patients, but Connolly says a month before the first death he warned his supervisor, Something's going to happen, something's going to get missed and we're going to get shut down. We weren't compounding any more. We were manufacturing.

An unidentified salesman told 60 Minutes that NECC dispensed to nearly 3,000 hospitals and clinics nationwide -- in many cases issuing medications based on fake names supplied by clients looking for cheap drugs.

We still don't know how or why this occurred. Until we can answer this question, it is premature and unfair to accuse anybody of causing this contamination, attorney Bruce Singal, on behalf of NECC owner Barry Cadden, said in a statement.

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Compounding pharmacy 'got greedy,' former employee says