1 of 4. A security guard looks out from the front doors of pharmaceutical compounding company New England Compounding Center (NECC), a producer of the steroid methylprednisolone acetate, in Framingham, Massachusetts October 8, 2012. 
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday widened its investigation into the deadly meningitis outbreak to include the role health regulators played in monitoring the pharmacy that produced steroid treatments suspected of causing the crisis. 
 
 The House Energy and Commerce Committee called on the Massachusetts pharmacy board to tell congressional staff what it knew about the New England Compounding Center before the recall of more than 17,000 vials of sterile injectable steroid treatments for back and joint pain from health facilities in 23 states. Massachusetts board officials were not immediately available for comment. 
 
 The panel, which oversees health issues including drug safety, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was aware of production problems at Framingham, Massachusetts-based NECC in 2006, including potential public health risks involving a different sterile injectable drug. 
 
 The rare fungal form of meningitis has killed 14 people in 12 states, with the first case reported in Texas on Friday. The number of cases nationwide reached 184, an increase of 15 from Thursday, CDC said. 
 
 The outbreak is a major national health scandal, with multiple investigations under way and a leading Democratic lawmaker, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, calling for a criminal investigation of the company. 
 
 The House committee asked the Massachusetts regulator to agree to a briefing no later than October 19 and requested all inspection reports, records and communications related to NECC and its sister pharmacy, Ameridose LLC, which has the same owners. 
 
 "The committee is investigating whether any remedial measures were taken after this inspection and why the NECC was able to continue operating in this manner more than six years after the fact," Republican Fred Upton, the committee chairman, said in a letter co-authored by six other panel members. 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFINGS 
 
 The committee also has asked for briefings from NECC and has had what an aide called "several preliminary discussions" with FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
 One of the nearly 14,000 patients given potentially tainted injections of pain medicine has sued the maker of the treatment in the first of a wave of lawsuits. 
 
 The lawsuit was filed in a Minnesota federal court on Thursday by a woman who said she was given a steroid injection for back pain and has experienced symptoms consistent with meningitis. She is awaiting the results of tests. 
 
 Lawmakers and organizations including the advocacy group Public Citizen have raised questions about whether the FDA and Massachusetts regulators had the knowledge and authority to act against NECC before the outbreak occurred. 
 
 The compounding company has recalled the suspect product, surrendered its operating license and has said it is cooperating with the investigations. 
 
 The regulatory issue involves a little-known segment of the pharmacy industry called drug-compounding, in which pharmacists alter or recombine ingredients from FDA-approved drugs to meet the special needs of doctors and their patients. 
 
 Pharmacies like NECC are allowed to compound drugs for specific prescriptions, mainly under the supervision of state pharmacy boards rather than the more stringent safety and efficacy standards that the FDA imposes. 
 
 FDA officials have called for a new regulatory framework, saying the agency's power to oversee compounding pharmacies is limited, partly as the result of legal challenges that have popped up in courts across the country over more than a decade. 
 
 The House committee noted a 2006 FDA letter that said NECC's actions were not consistent with traditional compounding practices and likened the operation to a drug manufacturer. 
 
 An FDA official at a briefing on Thursday said NECC assured the agency that it was producing safe products. Also at that briefing, Massachusetts health regulator Dr. Madeleine Biondolillo said the company appeared to have flouted state laws for pharmacies. 
 
 She said the state inspected of NECC facilities in 2011 and currently is investigating a complaint from March. She provided no details. 
 
 14,000 AT RISK 
 
 The CDC is working furiously to contain the meningitis outbreak from medications shipped to 23 states. Deaths have been reported in Tennessee, Florida, Michigan, Indiana, Maryland and Virginia. 
 
 Of the 14,000 people at risk of infection, medical practitioners still were trying to reach about 2,000 patients to warn them to be tested immediately. 
 
 "We are not out of the woods yet," Dr. Todd Weber, manager of the CDC response to the meningitis outbreak, said during a briefing on Thursday. 
 
 While most of the patients at risk received epidural injections to alleviate back pain, the CDC said patients who received injections in joints such as a knee or ankle also should be checked. 
 
 They disclosed that a Michigan patient had developed an infection after an injection in an ankle. Tests have not yet been completed to determine if it is a fungal infection. 
 
 Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include headache, fever and nausea and it must be treated quickly to improve chances of survival. Fungal meningitis is a rare form and is not contagious. 
 
 Most people infected so far have displayed symptoms within two weeks of receiving the medication and as long as 42 days afterward. They cautioned that patients should be vigilant for several months if they received one of the injections. 
 
 Health officials in Tennessee, the state with the most cases, said on Friday that a facility there may have received one of the suspect shipments of medication as early as the beginning of June. There could be 111 more patients needing testing who were not on the original list of those at risk, they said. 
 
 More than 50 vials of the steroid, out of more than 17,000, had so far been confirmed as contaminated with more tests under way, health authorities said. 
 
 The lawsuit is Barbe Puro v. New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 12-2605. 
 
 (Reporting by David Bailey, Toni Clarke, Ros Krasny, Aaron Pressman, Grant McCool and Tim Ghianni; Writing by Greg McCune; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bill Trott) ||||| A Minnesota woman who may have received tainted steroid injections blamed for the nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis sued the drug seller on Thursday, though she hasn't been diagnosed with the rare illness. 
 
 The federal lawsuit appears to be the first stemming from the outbreak, though many lawsuits are expected. 
 
 The suit alleges that Barbe Puro suffered headaches and nausea after receiving injections in her neck to ease chronic back pain in September, but she believed the symptoms weren't abnormal. She said she was later contacted by the Minnesota Department of Health, informing her that she may have received contaminated shots sold by the New England Compounding Center. 
 
 Officials have identified the Massachusetts-based company as the source of steroid shots suspected in the fungal meningitis outbreak that has sickened about 170 people and been linked to the deaths of 14 others. 
 
 Puro, of suburban Minneapolis, underwent a painful spinal tap to test for the illness over the weekend, said her attorney, Jeff Montpetit. Results are pending. 
 
 Center spokesman Andrew Paven declined comment Thursday, saying the company hadn't seen the lawsuit. Paven said the lawsuit was the first he'd heard about. 
 
 The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from the company for Puno's injuries, along with class-action status to cover other people who were injured after receiving the potentially tainted medication in Minnesota. 
 
 "People have to be proactive and take care of themselves. Before these death toll numbers go any higher, people need to get checked," Montpetit said Thursday. 
 
 Federal health officials have tracked down 12,000 of the roughly 14,000 people who may have received contaminated shots. Doctors are warning that patients will need to keep watch for symptoms of the deadly infection for months.
– When your product has made 169 people sick, you should probably start bracing for a lawsuit. Sure enough, the New England Compounding Center of Massachusetts got hit with its first suit yesterday from a Minnesota woman who used its injections, though she has not been diagnosed with meningitis, the AP reports. The suit could be the first in a wave of litigation—nearly 14,000 people have used the center's injections. And that could be the least of the company's legal worries; Senator Richard Blumenthal has called for a criminal probe as well, Reuters reports. The company's injections have been linked to an outbreak that has so far killed 14 people nationwide, with cases reported across 11 states. The CDC has contacted most of the potential victims and warned them to be vigilant for symptoms, but it says there are about 2,000 it's still trying to notify. "We are not out of the woods yet," a CDC manager said yesterday.