New York Pharmaceutical Errors Lawyers

Prescription medications are supposed to make us feel better -- and, usually, they do. But mistakes with medication can turn a panacea into a literal poison for victims. And when the victim is a newborn baby, the results can be especially devastating. Because of their tiny size and their vulnerability, an overdose or wrong medication that an adult might live through can cause death or serious, permanent injuries to infants. Although the effects of medication errors vary according to the patient and the drug, victims can die or suffer permanent disabilities from stroke, heart attack, brain damage and other very serious injuries.

Millions Suffer After Pharmaceutical Mistakes

Medication errors are more common than you might think. A study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the 1990s found that 1.3 million Americans each year are victims of some kind of pharmaceutical mistake. Worse, they are almost always preventable errors. Hospitals, pharmacies and clinics all have procedures in place to ensure that patients get the right medication at the right dosage. But due to overwork, time pressures or carelessness, not all of them follow their own procedures -- and patients suffer. Frequently, these are patients who can't actively take part in their own care because they're too young, or too sick, to talk about their care. Medication errors in New York can be:

• A wrong medication.
• A medication that can interact dangerously with the patient's existing medication.
• Overdoses or underdoses -- too much or too little of a drug.

An overdose was the medication error that landed actor Dennis Quaid's family in the news in November of 2007, when Quaid's newborn twins were incorrectly given 1,000 times the recommended dosage of a blood thinner. Two pharmacy technicians and a nurse at a respected Los Angeles hospital failed to read the drug's label closely enough. The error was caught in time to reverse the effects of the overdose, but a similar error in Indiana killed three babies in 2006. Like hundreds of thousands of other medication error victims each year, those babies didn't make the national news because they weren't related to a celebrity. But their injuries were still devastating to their families -- and completely preventable.

Medication Errors Are Medical Malpractice

Hospitals, pharmacies and other drug dispensaries have a legal and ethical obligation to make sure the medications they give us are safe. That obligation is especially important when the victims are newborn babies who can't even communicate with nurses, much less control their own treatment. When medical professionals hurt these patients and their families through carelessness around medication, the victims have the right to hold them responsible for the results by filing a pharmaceutical error claim.

Wingate, Russotti & Shapiro can help. We are an experienced, aggressive New York birth injury law firm specializing in complicated birth injury and medical malpractice cases. Since we founded our firm in 1990, we've won tens of millions for victims of medication errors and other highly preventable medical mistakes. That's money our clients can use to pay for necessary medical care; get full-time treatment, special schooling or other help; and compensate them for a permanent, irreversible disability.

If your family has suffered a serious injury or your baby has a birth injury because of pharmaceutical errors, call the experienced New York pharmaceutical error attorneys at Wingate, Russotti & Shapiro today for a free consultation.