3 Month Old Florida Baby Victim of Pharmacy Error

scott@grossmanjustice.com (Scott Grossman) — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:05:35 -0500

A large chain pharmacy commits another mistake by mislabeling a three month old's prescription with the wrong dosage. I used the word mistake here because it is a well known way to describe pharmacy errors but the truth is that the words "pharmacy mistake" sound way too innocuous for these situations.

This time, in a recent article on FoxNews.com, the victim was a baby with a sinus infection. The parents filled a doctor's prescription for Histacol DM syrup at a Palm Coast, Florida Walgreen's store. The dosage of the medication was to be a quarter of a milliliter. The prescription was erroneously filled by a Walgreen's pharmacy, who wrote the dosage at a quarter teaspoon, six times the prescribed amount of medication. Upon taking the first dosage, the baby became unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors were able to stabilize the child. In a typical move, Walgreen's offered $2,000 to make this bad story disappear, which the family refused.

]]>My experience with clients who have fallen victim of "pharmacy error" or "pharmacy mistake" at the hands of the large drugstore chains has taught me that Walgreen's would have made any settlement conditional upon the family signing a strictly enforced confidentiality agreement. This is of course done to shield pharmacy's from bad publicity and to prevent the public from knowing the truth about the frequency at which these mistakes occur. Good for the Ruddell family who decided to go public with their story in order to inform others about what happened and to try to help save others from the same mistake.

Pharmacy Errors - New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog

3 Month Old Florida Baby Victim of Pharmacy Error