Food & Drug Safety

Heparin blood thinners may have sickened as many as 100 people in Germany, health officials report. The FDA is currently investigating the drug after it was linked to 19 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions in the US, possibly due to contaminants from China. The agency is now recommending that all American heparin manufacturers test supplies for contaminants and counterfeit ingredients. More »

Six people with serious cases of hepatitis are just the beginning of what's expected to be a major health problem after a Las Vegas clinic gambled with the lives of tens of thousands of patients by reusing syringes, reports AP. The practice may have exposed patients to HIV and could be responsible for an outbreak of hepatitis C. The Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada is now the focus of the biggest public health notification operation in US history with nearly 40,000 patients contacted. More »

The FDA has found a contaminant in samples of heparin, a blood thinner produced mainly in China linked to 19 deaths and nearly 800 allergic reactions in the US, the New York Times reports. The contaminant may be a counterfeit form of heparin added to reduce its manufacturing cost. The FDA is fine-tuning tests to better detect it. More »

Herbal supplement company Airborne will pay $23.3 million to settle a class-action suit alleging false advertising but won't say it did anything wrong, CNNMoney reports. At issue was the company's claim its pills could cure colds. Airborne denies “any wrongdoing or illegal conduct,” but it will give customers their money back, said the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a plaintiff. More »

Baxter International has expanded its recall of heparin products as the FDA said the number of deaths possibly linked to the blood thinner rose from 4 to 21, the New York Times reports. The agency said it found "deficiencies" at a Chinese plant that supplied the active ingredient. Baxter, which produces about half of the nation's supply, has now recalled virtually all of its heparin products. More »

Government inspectors say staff shortages are making it impossible for them to do their jobs properly and that sick cows could be getting into the food supply, reports AP. With staffing levels so low, inspectors are forced to quickly scan hundreds of animals to spot signs of illness like drooping ears, while slaughterhouse workers who warn each other with walkie-talkies try to steer them away from problem areas. More »

Don't fault slaughterhouse workers for this week's enormous beef recall, author and foodie Michael Pollan tells Newsweek —it's the system. Blinding-fast production lines that expect workers to slaughter up to seven cows per minute do not a safe or ethical steak make. "It's one of those episodes that peels back the curtain on how our food is prepared," Pollan says. More »

The Chinese facility that supplied the active ingredient of the blood-thinner heparin, linked to hundreds of adverse reactions and four US deaths, was never inspected by the FDA because the agency confused it with another plant of the same name, the Washington Post reports. The company was given approval based on an earlier FDA inspection of the other factory. "The wrong firm was put into the database," said the FDA's deputy director. More »

The ongoing mystery of the diminishing honeybee population is threatening an important part of the American diet: ice cream. Bee colonies have been disappearing at a rapid rate, potentially causing problems with supplies of vegetables as well as fruit and nuts, which Haagen Dazs says may keep it from offering a full variety of flavors. More »

The USDA today issued its biggest recall ever, recalling 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a slaughterhouse in Southern California that is currently being investigated for animal cruelty. The recall affects meat dating to Feb. 1 that originated in Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. The company distributes beef to major fast-food chains, as well as the federal school lunch program. More »

Prosecutors hit a slaughterhouse manager with what they say are unprecedented felony charges yesterday after a video released last month showed abusive methods being used to push ailing cattle into a slaughter box, the Press-Enterprise reports. Daniel Ugarte Navarro, 49, faces over 8 years in prison if convicted of five felony counts of animal cruelty and three misdemeanor counts of illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal. More »

The FDA is investigating the safety of Botox and a competing medication after learning that the drug might have caused death and breathing problems in children being treated for cerebral palsy, Reuters reports. That's not an approved use for the cosmetic drug; docs administer it because it can block nerve impulses and relax spasmodic muscles. No adult deaths were reported, according to the Wall Street Journal . More »

Researchers have abruptly tabled a major study measuring the effects of lowering diabetics' blood sugar after a surprising number of deaths among participants. The results come as a shock to the medical community, which has long held that lowering blood sugar through diet and medication is the only way for diabetics to stave off heart disease, the New York Times reports. More »

The Caribbean island that produces 13 of the 20 best-selling drugs in the US has sold tainted pills and is struggling with quality control at its pharmaceutical plants, AP reports.  FDA inspections of 13 Puerto Rican plants between 2003 and 2007 revealed problems such as machinery pins left in drug bottles and foreign material embedded in tablets. More »

The Food and Drug Administration has confirmed outbreaks of food poisoning among people eating fish from the northern Gulf of Mexico. Ciguatera poisoning is caused by toxins from poisonous algae that have accumulated in the tissue of large fish. The higher the fish is on the food chain, the more poison can build up, so fish like grouper, snapper, amberjack, and barracuda are the most dangerous, reports the AP. More »

The US Department of Agriculture is looking into a California meat distributor following the release of a video showing animal abuse at a Chino slaughterhouse, the Los Angeles Times reports. Westland Meat was immediately suspended from its contract to provide beef to federal school lunch programs because of its practice of slaughtering weak or sick cows, banned from the food supply. More »

A Chinese pharmaceutical giant which exports the abortion pill RU-486 to the US is accused of producing tainted cancer medication and of attempting a cover-up.  Shanghai Hualian's tainted drugs left 200 Chinese leukemia patients hospitalized, some paralyzed, reports the New York Times . There's no indication US shipments of RU-486 are also tainted. The company is the sole supplier of RU-486 to the US. More »

Cows are zapped with electricity, picked up with forklifts, and subjected to high-pressure jets of water up their noses in a video taken at a California slaughterhouse by an undercover investigator from the US Humane Society, the Washington Post reports. The video shows cattle workers using extreme, and illegal, measures to try to get sick or slow cows moving. More »

The problem of drug-name mix-ups is growing in the US, with harmful and sometimes even fatal consequences for patients, USA Today reports. A study undertaken by the group that regulates generic drug names found that the rate of mix-ups has more than doubled since 2004. In one case, a 7-year-old boy ended up in the emergency room after being given schizophrenia drug Zyprexa instead of  the allergy drug Zyrtec. More »

More than 7,000 American children a year end up in emergency rooms after taking over-the-counter cold or cough medicines, the federal Centers for Disease Control reports. Most of the children take overdoses of the drugs on their own, but a quarter have bad reactions to normal doses given by their parents, according to the study of kids under 12 published in Pediatrics . More »