[MMike]

I heard about this happening last week....not cool. While the packaging would help, I still think the hospital staff screwed up royally

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Dennis Quaid and his wife sued the makers of heparin Tuesday after their newborn twins were inadvertently given massive doses of the blood thinner at a hospital.


Dennis Quaid and wife Kimberly recently had twins.

The product liability lawsuit, filed in Chicago, seeks more than $50,000 in damages.

It claims that Baxter Healthcare Corp., based in Deerfield, Illinois, was negligent in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials with blue backgrounds.

The lawsuit also says the company should have recalled the large-dosage vials after overdoses killed three children at an Indianapolis hospital last year.

The lawsuit was first reported by CelebTV.com, which obtained the court documents.

A call to Baxter Healthcare Corp. seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.

The Quaids' children, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, and a third patient were at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on November 18 when they were mistakenly given vials of heparin that were 1,000 times stronger than the usual dosage.

The twins were home Tuesday and "appear to be doing well," said Susan E. Loggans, the Chicago attorney who filed the lawsuit. "The Quaids are a religious family, and they really believe the prayers of the public saved their kids."

"Apparently, they're going to be fine now," she said but declined to otherwise comment on the children's medical conditions.

"The point of this case is to save other children from this fate. They're not looking for money," Loggans said of the lawsuit.

The Quaids didn't sue Cedars-Sinai, which acknowledged after the news broke that a "preventable error" had resulted in three patients receiving vials containing 10,000 units per milliliter of heparin instead of vials with a concentration of 10 units per milliliter.

The patients were receiving intravenous medications and the heparin was used to flush the catheters to prevent clotting.

Two of the patients needed a drug that reverses the effects of heparin, the hospital said at the time.

The hospital issued an apology to the patients' families, and said it would take "all steps" to prevent a recurrence.

The heparin was "unreasonably dangerous" as it was packaged and sold because both the small and large dosage vials had labels with blue backgrounds when the vials "should have been completely distinguishable (by) size and shape," the lawsuit argued.

A similar dosage error killed three premature infants at an Indianapolis hospital last year. Three others survived overdoses.

In February, Baxter Healthcare Corp. sent a letter warning health care workers to carefully read labels on the heparin packages to avoid a mix-up.

But the lawsuit by Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, argues that the company didn't do enough.

The company failed to recall the large-dosage vials after the infant deaths and repackage the drug, the lawsuit contends.

It said the manufacturer also should have issued an "urgent" warning to health care providers that required them to educate nurses and others about the problems and implement safety procedures.

 

[$tinkle]

rtfm!

 

[LordOpie]

rtfm!

True, except that the packaging was too similar and even tho the manufacturer claims they've changed the packing 10 months ago, it's yet to be available.

 

[$tinkle]

i think the only reason you lot are hanging on his bozak is b/c you just watched breaking away.

 

[LordOpie]

weak.

 

[Silver]

"The Quaids are a religious family, and they really believe the prayers of the public saved their kids."

Sure. The fact that it looks like at least one of them was given a drug that reversed the effects of the heparin had NOTHING to do with it. It was all God.

 

[X3pilot]

good ol' Gawd

savin' babies and responsible for NFL touchdowns!

 

[reflux]

Sure. The fact that it looks like at least one of them was given a drug that reversed the effects of the heparin had NOTHING to do with it. It was all God.

Prayer clearly resulted in the creation of said drug.

WRONG AGAIN SILVER! Jezus to the rescue!

 

[fluff]

Prayer clearly resulted in the creation of said drug.

WRONG AGAIN SILVER! Jezus to the rescue!

But then it woz God as got 'em sick to start with. He works in mysterious ways his whims to perform.

 

[stevew]

But then it woz God as got 'em sick to start with. He works in mysterious ways his whims to perform.

It was just a test.

He was into those.

I bet he whispered "GOTCHA!" in their ears.

 

[scrublover]

This was a nursing and pharmacy error, helped along by bad packaging. Bottom line though: it's the nurse drawing up the med that is ultimately responsible. Something I always keep in the back of my head. All drugs are potentially dangerous, but some more than others.

That said, there are far worse drugs they could have been given a wrong dose of; thankfully Heparin reversal is fairly straightforward. Get it started, and don't do a damn thing that might cause any sort of tissue damage in the meantime.

 

[H8R]

rtfm!

"Use the blue vial"

 

[fluff]

The fact that the same problem occurred more than once in at least two different hospitals illustrates that it was dangerous to package both doses in such similar packaging. People make mistakes, any action that helps avoid that should be taken.