Questions about Regulators Growing in Meningitis Probe

By Michael Whiteley, Eastern Bureau ChiefA Congressional investigation into an outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed 32 people in 19 states and infected 461 others centered Wednesday on the failure of the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to shut down the Framingham, Mass., compounding center blamed for the outbreak.Interim Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Dr. Lauren Smith told a U.S. House subcommittee that the head of an Illinois consulting company that gave the New England Compounding Center (NECC) a clean bill of health in 2006 was convic...