By Marshall Allen (contact)

Wed, May 14, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Sheila Leslie

Steven Horsford

Two state legislators say the executive director of the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners has ignored the public interest by delaying the investigation of doctors who may have caused the largest hepatitis C scare in the nation.

In their letter to the president of the medical board, Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, and Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, complain that Executive Director Tony Clark initially refused to comply with a police investigation and was misleading about his agency’s response to the crisis.

Clark’s actions “have established a clear pattern of unwillingness to uphold the laws of this state and to protect the public,” Horsford and Leslie wrote in their letter to Dr. Javaid Anwar, the board president. The letter was copied to Gov. Jim Gibbons, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and the other members of the medical board.

Leslie and Horsford were responding in part to a Sun report that Clark initially refused to provide Metro Police with past complaints against Dr. Dipak Desai, who is being investigated because dangerous practices at his clinic led to the possible infection of 85 people with hepatitis C. The law does not mandate that the board turn over the confidential complaints, but allows their release for the sake of a criminal investigation.

Clark’s “abuse of discretion” created “an unacceptable delay for law enforcement in conducting its investigation,” the letter said.

The legislators also said Clark “misled the public in media interviews and testimony” before politicians about the board’s authority to immediately suspend the license of Desai and other doctors at the clinic. It took about two months for the board to obtain temporary restraining orders so Desai and his partner Dr. Eladio Carrera could not practice.

Anwar, who has done consulting work for Desai, has recused himself from any involvement with the Desai investigation. He told the Sun on Tuesday that he could not comment on the letter.

Clark would not comment on the letter, but said his job is “to protect the public and I’m trying to do that with everything I do.”

Leslie said she wants to “put the board members on notice” and “nudge them into taking a more active role” in the way Clark handles the Desai investigation.