Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., met Monday with CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding, and on a media conference call after their meeting both strongly condemned practices at the clinic.
An outbreak of hepatitis C at a Nevada clinic may represent "the tip of an iceberg" of safety problems at clinics around the country, according to the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The city of Las Vegas shut down the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada last Friday after state health officials determined that six patients had contracted hepatitis C because of unsafe practices, including clinic staff reusing syringes and vials. Nevada health officials are trying to contact about 40,000 patients who received

anesthesia by injection at the clinic between March 2004 and Jan. 11 of this year to urge them to get tested for hepatitis C, hepatitis B and HIV.
Health care accreditors "would consider this a patient safety error that falls into the category of a 'never event,' meaning this should never happen in contemporary health care organizations," said Gerberding.
"This is the largest number of patients that have ever been contacted for a blood exposure in a health care setting. But unfortunately we have seen other large-scale situations where similar practices have led to patient exposures," Gerberding said.