Heparin contamination

If you or one of your loved ones takes heparin, a blood-thinner often prescribed for patients with heart conditions, you should be watchful for the following symptoms:

• difficulty breathing
• nausea
• vomiting
• excessive sweating and
• rapidly falling blood pressure

At least 19 deaths have  been attributed to a contaminant in heparin. The FDA has received nearly 800 reports of serious injury.

The New York Times reported on March 6, 2008 that recent testing using magnetic resonance imaging revealed that as much as 20 percent of the product, made in China, was a heparin mimic. The FDA doesn't know what the contaminant was and does not know if the inclusion of the substance with heparin sold to Baxter Laboratories was intentional.

You can read the New York Times article Drug Tied to China had Contaminant, F.D.A. Says here. A one-time registration may be required.