The pharmacy error lawyers at Kennedy Hodges are always appalled when pharmacies deliberately put their patients at risk. In a recent case, Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Florida was forced to recall hundreds of so-called sterile products were found to have bacterial contaminants.
The preparations were formulated to be injected directly into the patient’s eyes, resulting in ocular fungal infections that damaged the vision of at least 33 eye surgery patients.
The Federal Drug Administration says problems like these are common in pharmacies that take advantage of “compounding,” or making medications, creams, and other preparations from scratch. By law, these pharmacies are permitted to “fine tune” drugs to suit a patient's needs, such as altering pills to create a different dosage or suspend a drug in a liquid form if it is only available as a tablet.
Compounding is an old practice; it used to be the only way a patient could receive a medication. Pharmacists would grind and mix compounds in-store to create prescription medications as recently as the 1960s. In the last fifty years, however, the practice has died out, and the availability of mass-produced drugs has caused most pharmacies to dispense only FDA-approved medicines.
Unfortunately, the FDA has limited oversight over compounding pharmacies because of a 74-year-old law that allows compounding. However, the law dictates that pharmacists cannot compound any medication that is commercially available in the type and dosage ordered, and they are only allowed to make medications when specifically ordered by a doctor.
If someone in your family has suffered a harmful medication error, our board-certified drug injury attorneys can help. Call us today at (888) 526-7616 for a FREE consultation, or click the link on this page to get started.To get more information on your case, click the link above to receive a FREE copy ofour report, How to Make Pharmacies Pay for Injuries Caused by Medication Errors.