Republicans said Tuesday that the FDA should have shut down the NECC based on complaints from doctors, patients, hospitals and state pharmacy regulators. The FDA first inspected the NECC in 2002 and issued a warning letter in 2006 over the pharmacy’s production of copies of manufactured drugs without patient prescriptions. Between 2007 and 2012 the FDA continued to receive complaints about the company from anonymous whistleblowers and state pharmacy regulators, according to internal documents released by the committee.
‘‘Ten years of warning signs, alarm bells, and flashing red lights were deliberately ignored,’’ said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Murphy and other Republicans pointed to correspondence in thousands of pages of FDA documents turned over to the committee.
Democrats agreed that the FDA should have been more aggressive, but also supported the agency’s argument that outdated laws and conflicting court decisions have hamstrung federal efforts at policing pharmacies.
‘‘These documents show us that the FDA has been grappling with a law that is broken, and we need to help fix that law and keep the American public safe,’’ said Rep. Diana Degette, D-Colo., the subcommittee’s ranking member.
