Actor sues drug maker in infants’ overdoses

LOS ANGELES – Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, filed suit Tuesday against a manufacturer of the blood thinner heparin, saying the product’s labeling and packaging contributed to an overdose given to their newborn twins last month.

The Quaids’ babies, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, received 1,000 times the intended dosage of the blood thinner Nov. 18 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Nurses mistakenly administered a dose with a concentration of 10,000 units per milliliter instead of 10 units per milliliter, the hospital has acknowledged. Another child also was affected by the medication error.

Heparin is used as a flush to prevent blood clots in intravenous lines.

Between 2001 and 2006, there were more than 16,000 reports of heparin errors attributed to an improper dose or quantity administered, according to U.S. Pharmacopeia, which operates an Internet-based medication error and adverse drug reaction reporting program. In nearly 650 cases, patients were injured and 12 might have contributed to patients’ deaths, according to data prepared for the Los Angeles Times.

In their suit, filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., the Quaids contend that Baxter Healthcare Corp. failed to recall the 10,000-unit vials of heparin even though the company knew that other infants had died as a result of similar medication errors. Three babies in Indiana died last year after nearly identical mistakes.

The lawsuit also faults Baxter for using shades of blue as the prominent background color on the label of the high concentration and the smaller one “when they knew that such packaging” could have caused fatal errors.

Baxter is one of several companies that manufacture heparin.

A spokeswoman for Baxter, based in Deerfield, Ill., did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

After the overdose was discovered, the babies, who were born Nov. 8, were given a drug to reverse the effects of heparin, and they were moved to the neonatal intensive care unit for observation. They have since gone home,” said the Quaids’ lawyer, Susan E. Loggans. “The kids are doing great,” she said. “I just saw them. They look fantastic.”