Personal Injury Law

Pharmacy Error: Pregnant Woman is Accidentally Given Abortion Pill

By Altman & Altman

As you know, our Boston personal injury lawyers sometimes reports on stories making the national headlines. One unfortunate incident that has recently garnered a lot of media attention involves a pregnant woman who was accidentally given an abortion pill by a Safeway pharmacist.

Mareena Silva, who is several weeks pregnant with her first baby, says that a pharmacy misfill caused her to accidentally take methotrexate, which is used in chemotherapy treatments and can end pregnancies. She says that she thought the pill was the antibiotic that had been prescribed to her. After she started to feel sick, she noticed on the label that the drug she had been given was the wrong one. Silva contacted her physician immediately.

She was then rushed to the hospital where she was given charcoal in an attempt to get her body to absorb the drug. Doctors, however, say that she could still miscarry or have a baby with serious defects.

Safeway has admitted to the medication mix-up. The abortion drug was supposed to go to an older woman that shares a similar name to Silva?s and has the same last name.

Massachusetts Pharmacy Malpractice
Medication mistakes can cause serious health complications. Unfortunately, pharmacy errors are also not uncommon. Common causes of pharmacy errors made by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

? Inadequate training or experience
? Exhaustion
? Misreading a doctor?s prescription
? Pulling the wrong drug off the shelf
? Writing incorrect or vague directions on a drug label
? Getting drugs with similar drug names mixed up
? Understaffing
? Failure to make sure the correct drug and dose is given to the right patient

Pharmacy errors can be grounds for a Boston pharmacy malpractice lawsuit. It can be a challenge to prove that a medication mistake occurred, which is why it is important that you work with an experienced Boston injury law firm that knows how to prove who made the mistake and what type of medication error occurred.

Expectant mother mistakenly given abortion pill by supermarket pharmacist, NY Daily News, February 9, 2011

Pharmacy mix-up leads to pregnant woman taking methotrexate. What does this drug do?, Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2011

Related Web Resources:
Empowered Patient: How to avoid errors at the pharmacy, CNN, February 9, 2011

Pharmacy, Safeway

Full post as published by Boston Injury Lawyer Blog on February 09, 2011 (boomark / email).