Federal investigators and prosecutors in Indiana believe that four doctors at various medical center locations may be responsible for having caused as many as 27 deaths. The individuals who died were all patients at a group of clinics in the area. Two of the doctors accused of causing the deaths…
An Alabama jury recently awarded a widow $850,000 after her husband was allegedly administered triple the normal dosage of medication for a pre-existing condition, and died as a result on Christmas Day. The jury reportedly spent hours deliberating before delivering the verdict against the man’s doctor, for having purportedly caused…
The family of a young girl recently filed a $750,000 federal lawsuit against her local pharmacy, alleging that the business wrote the incorrect directions on her prescription for a seizure medication, causing the girl to take five times the proper dosage of the drug. According to the lawsuit, the little…
A doctor/medication safety specialist recently wrote an article about a common abbreviation that could lead to severely adverse consequences in patients. The article, which appears in the web version of the Pharmacy Times, discusses one common abbreviation for acetaminophen, APAP, which is based upon the chemical composition of the drug,…
In probably one of the most egregious incidents that have occurred in pharmacy error news lately, a young woman was intentionally given the incorrect prescription medication in order to induce a miscarriage. The 27 year old Florida woman was apparently deceived by her boyfriend who colluded with a local pharmacy…
As previously discussed on this blog, one of the most common errors made by prescribing doctors, or in those who input values, is accidentally increasing the dosage, such as in the entering of “10.0 mg,” when the person should have input “1.0 mg.” Even though the error is only a…
A woman who was given a prescription for medication to help ease her anxiety before a dental appointment now has good reason to be skeptical of pharmacies. The woman was given a prescription by her dentist to take prior to a dental appointment for 0.25 milligrams of Triazolam. When she…
Johnson & Johnson recently made the decision to make some changes in the way it labels Tylenol, specifically in regards to adding additional warnings of the potential dangers the drug may pose. The warning will make it explicitly clear that the over-the-counter drug contains acetaminophen, a pain-relieving ingredient that’s the…
A Harford County jury recently awarded nearly $1 million to the estate and surviving family members of a woman who allegedly received excessive pain medication following a leg ulcer surgery. According to reports regarding the case, the plaintiffs alleged that the doctors at the Harford County Hospital administered morphine, oxycodone,…
Individuals in Ireland with diabetes may be at a serious risk of injecting themselves with dangerously high levels of insulin, due to an error in glucose monitoring kits recently discovered. According to the authorities, some 4,100 boxes of test strips, which are directly used to measure glucose levels in the…