Published 27 July 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c4057
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;341:c4057
Jane Feinmann
1 London
The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.
Clinicians have been urged to boycott drugs sold in large multidose vials that encourage the practice known as "double dipping." Instead they should persuade pharmacies to buy safer single dose ampoules or prefilled syringes, leading specialists say.
The warning comes as US hospitals assess the effect of a $505m (£330m; 390m) award in damages in May 2010 to a patient who contracted hepatitis C while undergoing colonoscopy at a prestigious Las Vegas clinic in 2008. Investigators from the Southern Nevada Health District closed the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada after watching nurse anaesthetists use a clean needle but the same syringe to draw several doses from a 50 ml vial containing the anaesthetic drug propofol. A further 115 of the centre’s patients have so far been found to be infected with the hepatitis C virus.
Two drug companies, Teva Parenteral Medicines and Baxter Healthcare, have been ordered to pay $500m
. . [Full text of this article]
Source
Also See: Transmission in a Clinical Setting
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