In St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, a new robotic system is being used to fill IV medications. The new system, called RIVA, replaced the human element in the filling of medications in hopes that the high number of IV medication errors will drop. According to a report in the…
Earlier in May of this year, an Indian-owned pharmaceutical company announced a voluntary recall of over 10,000 bottles of promethazine hydrochloride, a drug used to treat allergies. According to a report by Medical Daily, the recall was initiated when a 25-mg tablet of atenolol was found mixed in with the…
Following a meningitis outbreak that was linked to a faulty drug, several custom drug manufacturers have recently consented to voluntary oversight by the FDA. According to a report by AZ Central, the manufacturers of custom drugs exist in a bit of a legal loophole. These manufacturers often create specific drug…
Earlier this month, Ranbaxy Laboratories initiated a voluntary drug recall of over 30,000 blister packs of one of the drugs it makes. The drug, which is a generic version of the popular allergy medication Claratin, is called loratadin and is a slow release pill with an added decongestant. The FDA’s…
Earlier this year in Crystal Lake, Illinois, a five-year-old boy ended up taking a dangerous dose of an anti-psychotic drug when the pharmacy gave the drug to his mother under the auspice of a treatment for his allergies. According to a report by the local NBC affiliate, the young boy,…
Earlier this year in April, the Air Force released a report indicating that it had prescribed the wrong medication on an Air Force base in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Evidently, on April 29th, someone reported that their prescription was not properly filled; Tylenol was prescribed instead of Robaxin, a muscle…
Physicians and nurses owe a duty to all of their patients to administer the proper medication and provide a certain basic level of medical care. Most of the time, physicians do the best job they can making sure that the sick are well cared for, but on occasion a lapse…
A federal district court dismissed a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company for alleged failure to warn, holding that any defect in the drug’s label did not influence the prescribing doctor’s decision regarding the drug. Parkinson v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 3:12-cv-02089, opinion (D. Ore., Mar. 20, 2014). In a claim…
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) has consolidated lawsuits filed around the country against the pharmaceutical company Pfizer under the style In Re Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (No. II), No. MDL-2502. The cases involve allegations that the plaintiffs developed type 2 diabetes after…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a “hand-held auto-injector” device for use with known or suspected opioid overdoses. Abuse of opioids, a group of drugs that includes many prescription painkillers, is becoming a serious problem in the U.S., and the FDA claims that opioid overdose has surpassed automobile…