Buenos Aires, March 25 (NA) – The General Audit Office (AGN) is advancing in an audit of the National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) in the case of contaminated fentanyl, and it is expected that this Thursday, March 26, victims' families will attend a participatory planning workshop to define the next steps. According to the document sent to the Argentine News Agency, the AGN has reactivated its intervention and called on victims' families of fentanyl to a participatory planning workshop to define a management audit of ANMAT. Of this number, 48 patients survived. Regarding the judicial situation, there are 14 prosecuted and detained individuals, including Ariel García Furfaro, owner of the laboratories HLB Pharma and Ramallo S.A. García Furfaro, a close associate of the Kirchner family, is considered 'criminally responsible as an accomplice to the crime of adulteration of medicinal substances' for causing the deaths of 20 people, 'in conjunction with the crime of adulteration of medicinal substances in a dangerous manner for health, also as an accomplice'. The document alleges that the businessman intervened together with 16 members of the staff of both laboratories through 'the making of different decisions related to the manufacturing, distribution and sale' in the adulteration of batch 31202 of the opioid, which was 'destined for public health use, with a production order issued on December 16, 2024'. 'The adulterations of the medicinal substance consisted of its contamination from a manufacturing process characterized by multiple shortcomings, including many critical ones, regarding which there were multiple alerts that were not heeded', the document states. The meeting will take place this Thursday, March 26, at 10:30 in the President Dr. Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín Building. 'The call comes in a critical context: an ongoing judicial investigation that investigates state responsibilities —including the Ministry of Health, ANMAT, and INAME— and an investigating commission whose reports have not yet translated into concrete responses, much less structural changes', the communiqué states. According to the judicial investigation by Judge Ernesto Kreplak and the commission's reports, 'the fentanyl adulteration case uncovered a critical sequence of failures in early detection, insufficient controls in production, ignored precedents, and a traceability and withdrawal system that failed to act in time'. At the end of January, Federal Justice sent the complete list of deceased from the adulterated opioid to the Forensic Medical Corps, confirming that there are 111 fatal victims. The analysis was carried out during the Judicial Fair, a period in which a total of 159 cases were evaluated.
