Tennessee Pharmaceutical Injuries
Most people trust that their doctor will properly write a prescription and the pharmacy will properly fill it. However, pharmacy errors – and the serious injuries they cause – represent a growing threat to public safety, leading to dangerous drug interactions, accidental overdoses, and in the most severe cases, death.
At the Morristown, TN law offices of Terry, Terry & Stapleton, we've handled cases involving clients who received the incorrect prescription or dosage, causing severe reactions and injury. We understand the damage caused by pharmaceutical mistakes, and we know that one simple error can have long-term implications for a patient's health.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that at least one death per day can be tied to a medication error and another 1.3 million people are injured annually due to prescription drug mistakes. Besides causing injuries and death, these preventable errors significantly increase health care costs due to loss of income, disability claims and medical treatment.
Pharmaceutical injuries can happen as a result of multiple factors, including:
- Improperly packaged medication
- The packaging of one medication that too closely resembles another
- Difficulty interpreting a doctor's handwriting, leading to the wrong medication or dose
- Drug names that sound similar – especially when substituting a generic drug that may have a name that sounds like several other name-brand medications
- Incorrect dosages or incorrect directions on the label
- High volume pharmacies that are staffed primarily by pharmacy technicians who aren't able to answer questions about medications – or where the volume of work is simply too much for the staff, leading to mistakes
In one highly publicized case of a pharmaceutical mistake, the newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid nearly died in November 2007 when a drug error caused a massive overdose. In a lawsuit over the incident, Quaid alleged that the labels on the child and adult doses of the blood thinner Heparin were confusingly similar. The company that makes the product changed its labeling after three infants died from similar mix-ups but did not recall the older bottles with the confusing labels, leading to the error that nearly killed Quaid's children.
Regardless of the cause, injuries can be extremely serious, even fatal, when a patient takes the incorrect medicine or dosage. Some of the most common reactions to wrongly dispensed drugs include:
- Allergic reactions, including anaphylactic shock
- Organ damage caused by overdose
- Infection
- Heart failure and other organ damage caused by drug interaction
If you believe you may have a pharmaceutical injury case, the Morristown, Tennessee attorneys at Terry, Terry & Stapleton are ready to help. There are time limitations for bringing pharmaceutical injury cases in Tennessee, so prompt action is important. For immediate assistance with your pharmaceutical injury claim, or to schedule an evaluation of your case, contact us by calling 1-800-518-3779. We serve clients in our communities, including Morristown, Knoxville, Knox County, Rogersville, Hamblen County, Greeneville, Jefferson City, Newport, Johnson City and Kingsport.
