News tagged with 'Heparin'

Drs. Margaret Hamburg and Joshua Sharfstein, both Harvard Medical School grads, have been chosen by President Obama to be the commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.  They still must face confirmation hearings.

The lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center by actor, Dennis Quaid and his wife has settled for $750,000.  Their newborn twins received an overdose of the drug heparin and they bled out nearly dying. The twins have since recovered, but the Quaids have formed a foundation to inform the public about the "conspiracy of silence" of medical errors that kill 100,000 a year. 

The final report is now in on the contaminated blood thinner heparin that caused as many as 81 deaths in the U.S. A man-made chemical was added to batches of the drug, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) is also responsible for 152 adverse reactions.

The FDA opened its first food safety office in China today with two more to follow. The offices will oversee $2 trillion in exports of food and drugs to the U.S. The trick will be to find a third party verifyer to certify the products before they are shipped.

U.S. Marshals seized 11 lots of Heparin from Celsus Laboratories Inc. The FDA found the products, manufactured from material imported from China, to be contaminated with OSCS, a substance that imitates heparin’s blood thinning activity.

Chantix, the smoking cessation drug, and heparin top the list of the drugs most likely to cause death and injury as compiled by this watchdog group.  They represent just a tip of the iceberg.

Instead of a baby shower, infant twins will be buried in the same casket. The Texas twins were the victims of an overdose of Heparin, the blood-thinner routinely used to flush IV tubes. No one knows if the dose was fatal and unconfirmed reports say the little boy died of a bacterial infection. 

The twin sister of a newborn who died at a Corpus Christi, Texas hospital has died following a suspected overdose of the blood-thinner Heparin.  Twins, Kay Lynn and Keith Garcia, born one month premature, were among 14 babies receiving a dosage up to 100 times the recommended level of the anti-coagulant while in the neonatal intensive care unit. Whether the drug led to their death is unclear at this time. 

The CEO of a Corpus Christi hospital is apologizing for a medication error that may have caused the death of an infant. Another is in critical condition. Meanwhile, caps on damages in Texas mean that many medical malpractice lawsuits will never be filed.

Fourteen babies in the neonatal intensive care unit of Christus Spohn Hospital South were given overdoses of the pediatric version of the blood thinner Heparin, according to hospital officials. And one baby has died.

Actor Dennis Quaid told lawmakers today that he used to think "frivolous lawsuits" were a problem, that is until his family became a victim of medical errors. Don't take away the right to find a remedy through the courts, he told lawmakers considering "Federal Preemption" that protects manufacturers of products if they're approved by the FDA. 

Speaking strongly for the first time before U.S. lawmakers, the FDA said Tuesday it believes that intentional heparin contamination came from China. The plant's owner says that country has stopped his people from investigating the contamination. Heparin comes from pig intestines sourced locally.  

The Food and Drug Administration is reporting that 103 people have died over the last 15 months from the blood-thinner heparin. That’s more than three times the reported number from earlier this year that triggered a massive nationwide recall of heparin. Baxter International Inc. recalled batches of heparin after 19 people had fatal allergic reactions. Since then the FDA has been investigating the plant in China where heparin is manufactured from pig intestines.

Medical errors are costing us billions and leading to preventable deaths. That from the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals study, by HealthGrades, a leading hospital rating organization. It finds from 2004 through 2006 there were 238,337 preventable deaths among Medicare patients. That cost the program and ultimately taxpayers $8.8 billion.

The near-death experience of the newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid along with a new study are highlighting the frequency of medication related harm to children in U.S. hospitals. Researchers find that hospital mix-ups involving drugs affect about seven percent of hospitalized U.S. children. That translates to one in 15 hospitalized children or 540,000 kids each year.