Pharmacy Blog

What began July 20 as the recall of a single lot has expanded to a worldwide recall of all lots of Ultravist 370 mgI/mL, Berlex Inc. announced today.

At least two vials of Ultravist 370 mgI/mL lot 41500A contained crystalline particles, the company said initially. The worldwide recall, the company said today, stems from the possibility that crystalline particles may be in other vials as well. (more…)

Federal officials have stockpiled the equivalent of about 7.5 million doses of vaccine against an early isolate of influenza H5N1 and hope to use the results of scientific studies to parlay the bulk material into as many as 40 million doses.

“This is a dynamic program,” Robin Robinson of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness said June 28 at the Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance in Bethesda, Maryland, an annual event sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “Clinical results have really shaped our policy,” he said.

Most pandemic-related research revolves around influenza H5N1, a strain that was first known to infect humans in 1997, went underground, then reemerged in 2003. From then through late July the virus has been confirmed in 232 people worldwide and caused 134 deaths, most of them in Vietnam and Indonesia. (more…)

The widespread belief that adults can safely consume 4 g/day of acetaminophen was questioned in early July when researchers reported an association between this dosage and elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels.

Serum concentrations of the enzyme, a marker of liver cell damage, rose to more than three times the upper limit of normal in 39 percent of 106 healthy 18–45-year-old adults who consumed 500 mg of acetaminophen every six hours for up to 14 days in an industry-funded study. (more…)

To help prevent medication errors, all health care organizations by 2010 should be using electronic prescribing systems and all pharmacies should be able to receive prescriptions electronically, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) said in a report issued on July 20.

Medication errors harm at least 1.5 million patients every year in hospitals, long-term-care facilities, and outpatient clinics, resulting in billions of dollars in extra medical costs, IOM’s Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors said.

On average, a hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication error per day, the panel said in its report Preventing Medication Errors. (more…)