Medication Errors - why you should care about them

Lauren Ellerman

Contributor

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If you watched the news yesterday or listened on the radio, you heard about the families that traveled to Washington to tell their stories about recent bad batches of Heparin.

Heparin is used as anti-coagulation medication, and like coumadin, a difficult medication for physicians to manage. Blood thinners are given to millions of Americans after surgery, during dialysis, but should be closely monitored by the physician. Why? Because there are inherent risks and side effects.

But no one could have planned for, or prevented the carnage created by bad Heparin. Made from Chinese ingredients, at least 81 deaths can be directly attributed to bad Heparin in 2007-2008.

And what is being done? More FDA regulators? More Americans inspecting Chinese factories? Sadly, I don't think so. Rather you have few FDA employees willing to go oversees and none required to go inspect these facilities prior to import. So where does that leave the American public?

In a very scary place, where medication errors can take the lives of hundreds, with little to no actions being taken to prevent such contamination from happening again. Here is a suggestion - make our medications here, where our laws apply and our Food and Drug Administration has authority. I know you may lose a buck or two, but somehow I think it is worth it.