Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The head of the Food and Drug Administration renewed her push for new rules to help police pharmacies like the one that triggered a deadly meningitis outbreak, even as members of Congress expressed little interest in cooperating with the agency.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg met with state pharmacy regulators Wednesday to discuss ways to tighten oversight of compounding pharmacies like the New England Compounding Center.

Contaminated injections from the Framingham, Mass.-based company have been blamed for an outbreak of fungal meningitis that has killed 39 people and sickened 620.

Hamburg said federal and state health inspectors need to cooperate more closely to oversee the compounding pharmacies, which fall into a legal gray area between state and federal laws.