Walgreens - New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog

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.

Southeastern Walgreens Makes Dosage Error For Infant Prescription

scott@grossmanjustice.com (Scott Grossman) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:09:52 -0500

KLTV-7 out of Tyler-Longview, Texas reported today that a Walgreen pharmacy filled a prescription for the antibiotic Augmentin four times the prescribed dosage for a five-month old baby. When the baby's mother gave her daughter the first dosage, the baby was vomiting and was lethargic. The label on the prescription said that the baby was to get two teaspoons twice a day of the antibiotic. The baby's doctor prescribed 1/2 teaspoon twice a day. When the pharmacist was confronted with the error, his response was that they were really busy the night the prescription was filled and "accidents happen." Unbelievable. While the baby will be okay, it's yet another lesson to the prescription consuming public how vigilant we all must be when it comes to our health.

Justice is sought for victim of alleged pharmacy malpractice at Walgreens

scott@grossmanjustice.com (Scott Grossman) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:51:58 -0500

When I read this story, I was horrified by what happened to a newly pregnant St. Louis woman who went to Walgreens to fill a prescription for prenatal vitamins and was instead given a potent chemotherapy drug that killed her unborn child. The woman and her husband filed a lawsuit seeking some form of justice against the powerful pharmacy chain, alleging that Walgreens failed to properly supervise pharmacy personnel who dispensed the medicine, failed to verify the prescription with her physician, and failed to follow appropriate protocol.

The couple alleges in their complaint that she began to feel ill and began vomiting about a month into her pregnancy and assumed it was morning sickness, all the while taking what she thought were the prenatal vitamins. About a month later, she miscarried her baby. It is alleged that her unborn child was killed due to the ingesting of the potent chemotherapy drug. After her miscarriage, she continued to take the chemotherapy drugs (still thinking they were prenatal vitamins) because she believed that the vitamins would prepare her for a subsequent pregnancy. It wasn't until she telephoned Walgreens for a refill that the pharmacist realized the mistake. Please read the full article. I implore you to write in about your own personal stories pertaining to pharmacy mistakes and errors and your opinions about what has happened to this couple.