State Health Director Michael Fine, in a series of unprecedented moves, has permanently revoked the pharmacy license of Leo Blais, a former state senator from Coventry.
Fine had summarily suspended Blais' license more than a year after a baby and a toddler received medications from Apothecare Compounding Solutions that mistakenly contained morphine. This dispensing error occurred while Blais was the pharmacist in charge and the verifying pharmacist for both prescriptions.
Fine noted that it wasn't Blais' first professional lapse, citing a 1999 case in which the pharmacist admitted he had outdated, mislabeled and unusual medications in his pharmacy.
Blais, he said, has "twice repeated serious neglect of his public safety obligations and his actions leave me no other choice but to revoke his pharmacy license."
In March, Fine rejected an agreement between Blais and the state Board of Pharmacy that would have have retroactively suspended his license for two years, with one year stayed.