Drugs Mix-Up Fear in Deaths (Australia)
This article was originally published in PharmAsia News
Executive Summary
In June in Australia, AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company issued a recall for close to 75,000 ampules of adrenaline because of potential mislabeling of this substance. Australia's Health Quality and Complaints Commission is investigating whether or not two patients who recently died in ambulances died because they were given pethidine or adrenaline mixed with pethidine rather than adrenaline. Adrenaline can be used to increase a patient's heartbeat; pethidine causes sleepiness and slowdown. One sample of mislabeled adrenaline has been discovered in a New South Wales hospital. (Click here for more