Consumer Law

Tomorrow, Dennis Quaid To Take a Trip Down ?Med Mal? Lane, With Oprah

By Andy Hoffman

It?s hard to believe 16 months have passed since actor Dennis Quaid?s newborn twins almost died after they were mistakenly given 1000 times the amount of the blood thinner Heparin than they should have received.

His lawsuit against the drug company, which longtime readers of ThePopTort know we?ve been following since its inception (see here, here, here), has now been validated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Wyeth case.

But the story isn?t over, as Oprah will show tomorrow (March 10) when she features Quaid as he revisits the scene of the tragedy.  "I [felt] like when you go to hospitals, before this incident, that I [would] be taken care of and everything's gonna be fine," Quaid reportedly tells Winfrey. "People know what they're doing. And they do for the most part. But mistakes happen. Errors occur all the time."

Oprah has done segments on medical errors before.  This time, she?ll feature the Quaid story as well a woman who mistakenly received a mastectomy.   The last time Oprah looked at this issue (in 2003), she featured another brave woman who mistakenly had a double mastectomy.  Unfortunately, some things never change...

Full post as published by ThePopTort on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).