BOSTON — The head of the Massachusetts health department said investigators still don’t know why state regulators backed off a severe penalty against a pharmacy now implicated in a deadly meningitis outbreak.
Interim Commissioner Dr. Lauren Smith said “troubling questions remain” about why the New England Compounding Center escaped a penalty proposed in 2004, which included an official reprimand and probation.
The company protested that the penalty could destroy its business, and in 2006, the state’s pharmacy board agreed to impose a far weaker, non-disciplinary action on the company for reasons that remain unclear.
“I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision,” Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony, released a day ahead of delivery Wednesday before a congressional hearing in Washington. A separate hearing on the issue is also scheduled at the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday.
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