Wrong Pills Shipped to Online Drug Buyers

News Source: Washington Post



Wrong Pills Shipped to Online Drug Buyers
Associated Press
Saturday, February 17, 2007; A11

Consumers who thought they were purchasing sleep aids, antidepressants and other drugs over the Internet instead were shipped a powerful antipsychotic, sending some unwitting victims to the emergency room, federal health officials warned yesterday.

The Food and Drug Administration said a number of consumers took the schizophrenia drug haloperidol after ordering other pills, including Ambien, a sleep aid, and the anxiety medications Xanax and Ativan. Others thought they were getting the antidepressant Lexapro.

Preliminary analysis of the pills, packaged in plain plastic bags and mailed in envelopes bearing Greek postmarks, suggest they contain haloperidol. The FDA said it had reports of several consumers who took the pills seeking emergency medical treatment for symptoms such as difficulty breathing, muscle spasms and muscle stiffness.

The FDA used the occasion to remind consumers of the possible dangers of buying prescription drugs online.

The FDA posted images of the suspect pills and their packages on its Web site -- http://www.fda.gov/b...operidol.html-- to help consumers identify any suspect product they may have received.

Consumers who were sent haloperidol apparently had ordered drugs through a variety of commercial Web sites. The FDA said it was investigating.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

It appears that these problems occur in the US homeland as well...I guess a major advantage for buying your medicines in your homeland is a higher probability that you can track down the pharmacist if the medicine proves to be harmful...or, in this case...deadly.

The International Herald Tribune: News Source



Pharmacy error cited for toxic drug that killed 3 after treatment at Oregon clinic

The Associated Press
Friday, April 27, 2007

PORTLAND, Oregon: A pharmacy erroneously made a drug 10 times more potent than intended, which killed three people who received it at an Oregon clinic, the state medical examiner said.

ApotheCure Inc., a drug compounding pharmacy company in Texas, said an employee made a weighing error in the creation of the drug colchicine.

The drug was only sent to the Center for Integrative Medicine in Portland, where three people received injections of the defective batch to treat back pain, ApotheCure said.

All three people, two from Portland and one from Yakima, Washington, died between the end of March and beginning of April from the toxic levels of the drug, officials said.

The Food and Drug Administration said it is investigating the case, but thinks the problem is contained.

Gary Osborn, a pharmacist and certified clinical nutritionist for ApotheCure, said the situation could have been contained earlier, but the clinic did not contact ApotheCure until nearly two weeks after the first death. He said the second death occurred before the company was able to complete recalling the batch and sending them a new lot. He said this is ApotheCure's first incident of this sort.

"We are kind of the leaders in the industry," Osborn said. "But you know what people say, stuff happens."

The Portland clinic has since closed and representatives from the organization could not be reached for comment Friday.

Colchicine works by stopping cells from dividing, which reduces inflammation in conditions such as gout, said Dr. Rob Hendrickson, associate medical director for the Oregon Poison Center. But in excess doses, the drug stops all cells from dividing — eventually leading to organ failure and death.

The medication is not commonly used anymore and the use as a back pain treatment is less common than for gout.

Take care!

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