House unveils bill to police specialty pharmacies


Save Story
Leer en espaƱol

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

WASHINGTON (AP) - House lawmakers have introduced legislation that would bring more federal oversight to large specialty pharmacies like the one that triggered a deadly meningitis outbreak last year.

The bill introduced late Thursday by Republicans and Democrats would subject large compounding operations to regular inspections, fees and other requirements from the Food and Drug Administration. Currently state pharmacy boards oversee pharmacies, including compounders that mix customized medicines.

The effort comes almost a year after the emergence of an outbreak linked to contaminated drugs from a Massachusetts pharmacy, which killed at least 64 people and sickened 750 more. The bill's co-author, Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia, said the legislation would prevent similar outbreaks and ensure the "quality and safety of all compounded drugs in the country."

The Senate introduced similar legislation in May.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Most recent Business stories

Related topics

Business

STAY IN THE KNOW

Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

KSL Weather Forecast