None of the recalled drugs from a Massachusetts pharmacy linked to the deadly meningitis outbreak were shipped to Washington state, according to state Department of Health officials.
But the state is investigating a complaint it received against the company, the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., the Seattle Times reported.
The nature of the complaint was not disclosed, as is customary at this stage, the newspaper reported. The company is licensed in Washington as an out-of-state pharmacy.
The complaint was filed after an outbreak of fungal meningitis that has sickened those who received spinal injections of a steroid made by the company, mostly for pain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed last week that the black fungus found in the company’s vials was the same fungus that has sickened 338 people across the U.S. and caused 25 deaths.
Washington has compounding pharmacies. But Donn Moyer, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Board of Pharmacy, told the Times none do the volume that the New England Compounding Center was doing, “which would qualify as ‘manufacturing.’”
State pharmacy boards license pharmacies and their workers, but the federal Food and Drug Administration takes over when a company becomes a manufacturer, the Times said.
“I don’t think there should be a facility in the United States anywhere that is not an FDA-regulated facility that pumps out 17,000 doses of anything,” said Craig Toman, of Sound Prescriptions, which does business as Custom Prescriptions in Bellevue.
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