Indiana residents are injured and killed every year as a result of prescription medication errors. Indiana’s experience is mirrored on a national level. A 2006 report from the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine estimated that 1.5 million people every year are harmed by medication errors in the United States. The issue received national attention in late 2007 when actor Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins received accidental overdoses of a blood-thinning drug.
Accidental overdose is one of the more common medication errors. For example, a patient who is supposed to receive .5 milligrams of a drug instead receives 5 milligrams because the person administering the drug does not see the decimal point. These errors can also result from faulty labeling of the drug by the drug’s manufacturer. Medication errors also occur when the prescribing physician fails to take into account possible interactions between the drug being prescribed and the medications the patient is already receiving.
The law firm of Garau Germano, P.C., has handled claims involving medication errors for patients throughout the state of Indiana. If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of a medication error, please contact us.