Suit alleges Baxter's heparin killed wife

-Chicago Tribune

04/03/2008 -  Baxter International Inc. faces a growing number of lawsuits from families who blame the company's blood-thinning drug heparin for deaths of loved ones. Heparin was used by millions of people to prevent blood clots during dialysis and other medical procedures.

The latest wrongful death suit was filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court by the widower of an Iowa woman who died at home during kidney dialysis Nov. 30. Mark Scott of Davenport accuses Baxter of selling defective heparin that caused her death.

His wife, Melissa Scott, 53, began experiencing nausea and vomiting after treatment began in August, said Tom Ellis, a spokesman of the Nolan Law Group in Chicago, which brought the suit on behalf of Mark Scott. On Nov. 30, Ellis said, an allergic reaction to the heparin caused Scott to fall and as a result disconnect from the machine. Mark Scott found his wife on the floor after she called out to him during a treatment. The death certificate said death was caused by an air embolism in the heart, Ellis said. An autopsy was not performed.

"Mark wants to know for sure what happened to his wife," Ellis said. "His wife was well trained on the dialysis machine."

A Baxter spokeswoman said the company had not yet seen the Scott suit and declined to comment on its specific allegations. But she said the company is aware of at least four other wrongful death suits in the U.S.

"No patient deaths have been confirmed by medical or epidemiological evaluation by Baxter or [the U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to have been caused by the allergic-type reactions associated with the current heparin recall," said Baxter spokeswoman Erin Gardiner. "None of these suits includes any credible medical information to allow the company to medically evaluate these claims."

The Deerfield-based company also is defending at least five suits brought by patients who allege they were harmed by tainted heparin.

The FDA is investigating whether heparin is connected to as many as 19 deaths and more than 700 serious illnesses since Jan. 1, 2007. Baxter insists that four deaths so far may be connected to adverse reactions to heparin.

Baxter recalled the drug in February after a spike in severe allergic reactions in patients. Further investigation revealed a significant amount of an unidentified foreign substance contaminated batches of heparin.

The suspect active ingredient originated at a Changzhou, China, plant owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories, a Baxter supplier based in Waunakee, Wis. Last month the FDA disclosed that low-cost animal cartilage made its way into Baxter's heparin but has not determined a specific link to allergic reactions.

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