Heparin overdose of Quaid twins spurs $500,000 hospital settlement

Posted by Bruce Westbrook

June 22, 2009

A year and a half ago, the heparin overdose of actor Dennis Quaid’s twins was big news. The legal settlement just announced in the case isn’t as big of a news story to most media, but it’s also very significant.

The Associated Press reports that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has offered a $500,000 settlement in the case, which the Quaids have accepted. Half of that money will go to each of the twins: Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone. Also, Cedars-Sinai will pay for any additional medical care the Quaid twins ever need related to their injury, though they seem to have recovered.

As newborn infants in the fall of 2007, both were harmed when the hospital’s staff incorrectly administered a huge overdose of the blood-thinning drug heparin. The proper dosage would have been 10 units of heparin per milliliter of fluid. The dosage they got instead was 10,000 units per milliliter– or 1,000 times greater than the dose which was needed.

Contending that the drug’s maker had labeled it improperly, the Quaids previously sued Baxter Healthcare Corporation, manufacturer of the heparin used on their children. They were awarded $750,000 in damages in the case. Also, the state of California fined the hospital for its part in the calamity.

In separate cases, heparin also has harmed Americans in recent years via contamination caused during its manufacture. That’s not to say heparin can’t do good, but contaminated or overdosed heparin can be deadly, and many victims have died.

Quaid, Houston-born star of The Alamo, The Parent Trap and The Rookie, has campaigned actively for drug reforms since almost losing his children to a heparin overdose via a glaring medical mistake. While relieved that his own children survived, he’s wanted to spur action to protect future potential victims.

The disturbing reality is that this was not an isolated case — just a high profile one, since a film star was involved. In fact, it’s believed that more people die annually from medical mistakes in America than from AIDS, breast cancer and car accidents combined.

Clearly, accountability is deficient in this realm.

If you or a loved one has suffered harm due to such medical mistakes, take action, just as Quaid and wife Kimberly did: Launch a heparin lawsuit — or, if other drugs were involved, a defective drugs lawsuit.

By such means, victims not only can gain financial compensation for the harm which was done to them, but can send a strong message to health care providers and the pharmaceutical industry that they’ll be held accountable for their mistakes, and should intensity efforts to avoid them.

Americans deserve better health care than a 1,000-times-too-strong drug overdose. A heparin lawyer or defective drugs lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates can help to ensure that they get it.

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