Dennis Quaid has filed a lawsuit against Heparin, the blood-thinner that threatened the lives of his twins in 2007, thanks to an accidental overdose. According to Reuters, the suit alleges “the overdose was due to a mix-up over similar labeling in different doses of Heparin.” (The twins were given 10,000 units of the drug rather than 10 of their prescribed Hep-Lock.) Quaid’s twins spent time in intensive care due to the mix-up. Baxter International Inc. did not immediately return EW’s calls for comment.
UPDATE: Baxter has issued the following response to the lawsuit: “While the medication errors that occurred involving the Quaid children are extremely unfortunate, investigations by the hospital and the California Department of Public Health determined that this was a preventable error — as a result of not reading the label. We believe both Baxter and the Quaids have a common interest in reducing medication errors. We feel that working together to address this issue would be more productive than continuing to litigate this matter in the courts.”
Ok this is silly. This is equivalent to suing the bullet manufacturer because someone shot you. Getting an incorrect dose of medication is multifactorial and hard to pinpoint blame (Doc, nurse, pharmacist, wrong data entered, etc etc).
Are you kidding me? So stupid, he should be embarrased.
I like that word, “multifactorial.” Your argument works, PJ, except it looks like the allegation is specific to the labeling of the medication, which would be the manufacturer and/or distributor.
Actually, the FDA has to approve lableing and packaging prior to the manufacturer marketing the product. So I would agree with PJ, if the manufacturer is at fault, then the FDA must be equaly, if not more responsible.
Saying someone is suing “heparin” is like saying they’re suing aspirin. It’s a generic drug name. He’s suing Baxter.
Heparin is a brand name drug, like tylenol
This is stupid. You don’t sue the drug maker for the drug being administered incorrectly. Regardless of labelling, anyone who works with the drugs can read a bottle/package/bag. People will sue for anything and everything because they need to blame someone..that or they are money grubbing jerks. But for Quaid, I imagine it’s the former.
It is ultimately the nurse/doctor/pharmacist’s fault for administering the wrong dose. BUT I can see why he is suing the company. He wants them to change the labeling to make it easier to tell the difference between the different doses so this doesn’t happen again. I imagine that if he did win a big settlement, he will donate the money to charity.
I don’t exactly know what he’s trying to achieve with this lawsuit. He just feels so damn entitled that it’s not enough he punish the hospital, he needs some kind of payday. Tool.
Hey, somebody’s got to pay Randy’s legal fees.
I’m sick of such frivilous lawsuits. I get that his children were in danger, but it was whoever was responsible for giving the doses. Suing the manufacturer is just greed.
This may or may not be frivolous and not all lawsuits are about money. The linked article says unspecified damages – this may mean money or it may mean something else. Without seeing the actual filing, it is just speculation.
A quote in the linked artcile also states that accidental overdose has happened before with this drug. If true, then there may be justifiable reason to file suit.
Without more detailed info, everyone is just jumping to conclusions or drawing unfounded conclusions about this case.
Perhaps it would be wise to wait until more details are available before calling him a tool, arse or any other things.
The manufacturer has some level of responsibility to ensure that products and dosages are clearly marked. If not, then suing to get them changed is not necessarily greed.
I find it strange that so many would assume this is just a gold digging play. The guy proably has plenty of money so I doubt this was done out of pure greed. He may very well have a genuine concern that needs to be addressed.
I have not seen the labels so I don’t know if they are clearly marked or not, have you?
If not, then do some research befoer you jump to conclusions.