Florida Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Blog

Prescription Drug Mistake Lawsuit Filed by Actor Dennis Quaid | Florida Medical Negligence Attorney

Actor Dennis Quaid filed a negligence lawsuit against Baxter Healtcare. Quaid's twins, Zoe and Thomas, were given a potentially lethal dosage of Heparin in 2007. Baxter manufactures Heparin.

This comes after Quaid reached a $750,000 settlement with Cedars-Sinai. The lawsuit is claiming that Baxter is partly responsible for the prescription drug error that took place at the hospital. Quaid says that the labels for Heparin are a "totally foreseeable and predictable" error and Baxter should have taken steps to warn and to distinguish the drugs "knowing of the danger of an inadvertent mix-up."

The suit explains that Heparin and a lower-dose version called Hep-Lock are both distributed in similar blue vials with small print on the labels, which led to an error in the amount of the drug that was used.

The drug mistake occurred when the newborn twins were administered 10,000 units of Heparin instead of 10 while being treated for a staph infection.

The suit claims that the damage inflicted to the twins is likely to bring about serious complications in the future and may be permanent in nature.

Quaid and his wife previously filed suit against Baxter but the case was dismissed.

 Many fatal drug mistakes or medication errors arise because of illegible handwriting by a doctor on a prescription, or a poorly communicated order.

All too often, a drug with a name that sounds similar to another drug or has a label which is similar can result in fatal drug overdoses and other serious complications. 

A study in February, found doctors who are electronically submitting precriptions (e-prescribing) have significantly reduced the number of  drug errors caused by  human error in handwriting prescriptions.

For more safety information, we have posted an informative article in our Florida Medical Malpractice lawyer resource library,  click here to read our free report,  " 20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors