The State of California has fined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center $25,000 for giving overdoses of a blood thinner to three infants, including the newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid.

The California Department of Public Health found that hospital personnel failed to follow their own procedures for safe medication use, and that resulted in what they called "preventable medication errors."

In November, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, then 10 days old, were given 1000 times the recommended dosage of Heparin, an adult-strength blood thinner, after they were hospitalized with an infection. The twins have since recovered completely.

Dennis and Kimberly filed a lawsuit against the manufacturers of Heparin, Baxter Healthcare Corp., accusing the company of negligence in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials.

[TMZ]

Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly Buffington and their twins are one of the luckiest families in the world. their twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, almost lost their lives as newborns. They pulled through and are now perfectly healthy, but in the beginning, it was a nightmare.

“[Mix-ups] happen in every hospital in every state in this country and … I’ve come to find out, there’s 100,000 people a year killed … in hospitals by a medical mistakes,” the 53-year-old actor tells 60 Minutes in a segment scheduled to air Sunday, CBS reports.

Last November, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace Quaid were mistakenly given a massive overdose of the drug Heparin, rather than Hep-tock, a much-weaker version of the drug routinely given to clear IV lines in pediatric patients.

“Our kids are bleeding from everyplace that they’ve punctured,” says Quaid. “They were working on Boone, whose belly button would not stop bleeding – blood squirted across the room. It was blood everywhere. It was a life-and-death situation.”

The Quaids are suing manufacturer Baxter International, which manufactures both drugs. The couple maintain that the similarity between the vials have resulted in similar mix-ups elsewhere. A parallel incident in Indiana resulted in three infant fatalities that led Baxter to re-label its vials and issue a warning to hospitals.

“After these three kids died in Indiana, they did not issue a recall,” says Quaid. “They recall dog food that came from China last year. But they don’t recall medicine that kills people if you give it in the wrong dosage. We think it’s wrong.”

Debra Bello, a senior director at Baxter, tells 60 Minutes that her company did not issue a recall, “Because the product was safe and effective, and the errors, as the hospital has acknowledged, were preventable and due to failures in their system.”

Quaid is now establishing a foundation to look into preventative measures within the medical system. “The nurse didn’t bother to look at the dosage on the bottle. It was avoidable, completely avoidable.”

[ICYDK]

Dennis Quaid's four-month-old twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, are back to full health and are "doing great," following a drug overdose that left them battling for life.

The 'Day After Tomorrow' actor and his wife, Kimberly welcomed their twins into the world via a surrogate mother on November 8 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Hospital staff accidentally gave Thomas and Zoe 1000 times the recommended dosage of the anti-coagulant drug Heparin. The Quaids subsequently sued the hospital.

Thankfully, the twins have made a full recovery. "We just lie around in bed with them and make funny faces and funny sounds and see how they react. They're starting to giggle, too," Quaid says. 

The actor also has a 15-year-old son, Jack Henry, from his marriage to Meg Ryan.

[FF]

Actor Dennis Quaid is accusing Cedars-Sinai hospital of trying to  cover up the error they made in giving his newborn twins an overdose of blood-thinner.

Quaid and wife, Kimberley Buffington, spent harrowing weeks while their son and daughter struggled to recover from a massive overdose of heparin they were given in the hospital's neo-natal unit. Thankfully, they are now fine.

But the actor maintains that he and his wife were told that Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone had been given only half the overdose they actually got. However, a state investigation by the California Department of Public Health found that the Quaid children, and one other unnamed baby, received two of the 10,000 unit vials. The 20-page report found that the drug overdose had put the babies in "immediate jeopardy," meaning it has caused, or was likely to cause, "serious injury or death…" 

The report incensed the Quaids. "We find it outrageous and totally unacceptable that we are learning for the first time… exactly what transpired," the couple said in a statement. "We were told by upper Cedars-Sinai administration that our children had received only one 10,000 unit dose of heparin when in fact they had received two 10,000 unit doses over an eight-hour period that we now know of. The hospital's lack of candour has left us with the uneasy feeling that we may never know the whole story," they said.

The Quaids have sued Baxter Healthcare, the makers of heparin, accusing the firm of negligence in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials.

The hospital had apologised to the families and said it has taken step to provide more training to staff and review all policies and procedures involving high-risk medication.

[The Press Association] 

Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly Buffington were in Santa Monica Christmas shopping yesterday. They seem very relaxed after their newborn twins were overdosed with Heparin in the hospital last month.

The couple has since filed a lawsuit againt the makers of the drug, Baxter Healthcare Corp.

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly Buffington, are convinced that miracles do happen.

Their twins, Boone and Zoe, are back home and in tiptop shape after being given an accidental overdose of Heparin while in hospital, People magazine is reporting.

The infants, who turn one month old on Saturday, were hospitalized at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on November 20 after the accidental overdose on November 18. The babies were given 1,000 times the recommended dose of Heparin, an anti-coagulant used to flush out IV lines and prevent blood clots.

"The twins are back home," the Quaid's lawyer, Susan E. Loggans confirms. "Their condition is fantastic, they're smiling. Zoe looks like her mom, and Boone looks like his dad. They've fully recovered from the accident and it's doubtful they'll suffer long-term effects from the overdose."

That's the best outcome anyone could possibly hope for. We are thrilled for the family.

Meanwhile, as we predicted when the story first broke, a lawsuit has been filed in the case.

The Quaids filed suit yesterday against the drug manufacturers, Baxter Healthcare Company. They are seeking $50,000 in damages for "continued suffering," specifically, financial losses and invasion of privacy. The lawsuit charges that Baxter failed to properly label vials of its product to make them distinguishable from each other.

The 10 units-per-millilitre vial of Heparin looks almost identical to the 10,000 units-per-millilitre vial, which resulted in the twins accidental overdose. The error was discovered only after the twins began to bleed spontaneously. Boone and Zoe were treated to reverse the effects of the drug.

"On a negligence scale of one to 10, Baxter Corporation gets a 10," Loggans maintains. She said Baxter "knew medication errors due to product labeling resulted in death but failed to recall the drug.”

Cedars Sinai chief medical officer Dr. Michael Langberg had apologized for the mistake, calling it a "preventable human error" and a "failure to follow our standard policies and procedures."

Loggans said the Quaids are still undecided about whether to sue the hospital. It's a shame Baxter didn't see it fit to do likewise. The drug company announced new labelling procedures "launched in October 2007" that were "designed to help reduce the risk of medication errors," according to eFluxMedia.

Baxter said Heparin is the first medication offered with a new, enhanced label.

GOOD news for Dennis Quaid and family–his two precious babies should recover after being accidentally given a massive drug overdose (unbelievably) at the renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA.

Yahoo! news is reporting that little Thomas and Zoe are expected to recover.  Born to a surrogate on November 8, the twins were mistakenly given 10,000 units of the blood thinner Heparin, instead of just ten units. Apparently, a nurse grabbed the wrong dosage because the drug was stored in the wrong place. Heparin is used to prevent blood clots and to flush out IV lines.

Perhaps trying to avert some massive litigation, the hospital's head honchos have now apologized to Quaid and his wife, Kimberly Buffington.

Cedars-Sinai's Chief Medical Officer, Michael L. Langberg, MD admitted that the incident was 'preventable' and was caused by "a failure to follow our standard policies and procedures."

"There is no excuse for that to occur at Cedars-Sinai," Langberg said.

You got that right!

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly Buffington welcomed twins via surrogate on November 8th. Now the poor babies are fighting for their lives after being inadvertently overdosed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles according to TMZ.

The twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, were accidentally given a massive dose of Heparin, an anti-coagulant used to flush out IV lines and prevent blood clots. Babies typically get 10 units. TMZ's sources say they were each mistakenly given 10,000. Could you imagine!

According to a TMZ source, the babies started "bleeding out" and are now given Protamine, which reverses the effects of Heparin.

As of the last update the babies are in the Cedar's neo-natal intensive care unit and are in stable condition. But get this; this is not the only incident. There have been 13 patients mistakenly given higher amounts of Heparin. Someone needs to investigate that hospital!

I hope all is well with these little babies.

Dennis Quaid, 53, and his wife Kim, 35, are expecting twins from a surrogate mother later this year according to the Associated Press. Quaid, 53, and his wife, 35, are the biological parents, his publicist Lisa Kasteler said Monday.

Dennis has a 15-year-old son, Jack Henry, with ex-wife actress Meg Ryan. He and Kim married three years ago on the Fourth of July.