› $4.85 Billion settlement in drug case
Baxter Healthcare Corp. has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the deaths of two patients at a Delaware hospital following an injection of the drug maker’s blood thinner heparin. The FDA attributed the two deaths, and the illness of a third patent, to existing medical conditions. All three patients suffered intercranial bleeding following injections of heparin.
Pharmaceutical giant Baxter International faces yet another lawsuit, this time for playing a role in the distribution of a contaminated saline syringe that was used on a woman who afterward suffered serious medical problems that may have led to her death a year later, according to the Hays Daily News.
Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly now have closure in their year-long heparin overdose lawsuit against Cedars-Siani Medical Center, according to OK! and Entertainment Tonight. The entertainment media reported that a Los Angeles judge has signed off on the $750,000 settlement the couple reached with Cedars-Siani last month. According to the settlement, the hospital did not admit wrongdoing in the potentially fatal overdose of heparin that was accidentally administered to the couple’s newborn children Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone Quaid. The settle also allows for the couple to pursue claims for their children in the future. The California Department of Public Heath fined Cedars-Siani $25,000 for the error.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Baxter Healthcare Corp., claiming the company began substituting ingredients in its anti-coagulant heparin with a dangerous counterfeit to “reap greater profits as a result of utilizing cheap component parts,” according to The Madison St. Clair (Illinois) The Record.
The highly publicized lawsuit between the family of actor Dennis Quaid and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been settled, according to The Lowell Sun/Associated Press. Documents show that the Quaids have agreed on a $750,000 settlement with the hospital. The Quaid twins nearly died after they were accidentally given 1,000 times the intended dose of the blood thinner heparin shortly after birth. The settlement allows the couple to pursue claims for their children in the future.
