ADHD drug mix-up led to my son, 6, receiving lethal dose of highly addictive meds... my warning to parents
A mix up at a pharmacy proved nearly fatal after a six-year-old's ADHD medication was accidentally swapped with a lethal dose of opioids.
Sarah Paquin, a mother-of-three from British Columbia in Canada, said her son Declan had been taking dextroamphetamine to treat his attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder for years.
Paquin picked up his prescription as she always did from a local Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy, and didn't notice anything unusual.
However, when her husband David went to give Declan his daily medication the next morning, he noticed the pills were a different color.
When he checked the label on the bottle, he realized it contained a high dose of the opioid hydromorphone and the name on the prescription was of a woman the family didn't know.
Hydromorphone is around four times more potent than morphine. The medication has the possibility of causing life-threatening breathing problems.
This risk is particularly high for children due to their smaller size and weight. 'It's just terrifying. We put our trust in these local professionals to be upholding their end,' Paquin said.
She's urging people to double-check their medication labels.
She told CTV News: '[The pills] were in his hands.
'He would have had this high dosage of morphine and been sent off to school, unknowingly... I think this was entirely avoidable.'
Mr Paquin immediately returned the medication to the pharmacy, where the pharmacist gave him a refund but she was unable to find the correct prescription.
The order had to be refilled.
Commenting on the matter, a spokesperson for Shoppers Drug Mart's parent company, Loblaw PR, told DailyMail.com: 'Upon review with the store, we have learned this was a case of human error, one that never should have happened.
'We have controls in place to minimize risks like this - where the patient was handed the wrong prescription bag - and the associate will review these with employees to avoid a similar situation in the future.
'The owner of this location has reached out to the patient's parents to apologize for any undue stress this may have caused, and to outline the corrective steps.'
The Paquin family say they have also been informed the pharmacist responsible for the error has been suspended.
They now want to make their story public in a bid to warn other parents about the importance of being vigilant.
Mrs Paquin says: '[Patients and parents should] double, triple, quadruple-check every prescription you pick up, whether you've been going to that pharmacy for years, whether it's a medication you've been on for years.'
The Paquins have also filed a complaint with the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia about the incident.
The organization regulates all pharmacies in the province.
The FDA receives over 100,000 reports related to medication errors annually, with these contributing to up to 9,000 deaths.
In 2022, a former Tennessee nurse was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a patient who was accidentally given the wrong medication.
RaDonda Vaught, 37, was also convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult in a case that fixed the attention of patient safety advocates and nurses' organizations around the country.
Vaught injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey instead of the sedative Versed on December 26, 2017.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Why you should sing more — even if it's off key
Please, don't stop the music! There are some major health benefits to singing and practicing music — even if you can't quite hit all the notes in the latest Taylor Swift smash. Making music has the ability to benefit brain and mental well-being, regardless of your age, scientists say. Singing can also strengthen your physical health. So, don't stop, even if you're not the next Stevie Nicks. 'Nobody says you shouldn't jog if you are not good at it,' Daniel Levitin, a professor emeritus of neuroscience at Quebec's McGill University, recently told The Washington Post. 'That's not the point.' But, what is the point? Here's what you should know about singing before your next karaoke night: It's a mood booster Researchers have found singing helps to improve our moods, and the moods of our children. A new study published by researchers at Yale University has found that singing to your infant can significantly boost their mood. Research from the American Institute of Physics found that playing music can even calm fetal heart rates, potentially resulting in developmental benefits. But, the benefits go beyond age gaps. In April, a study from Northwestern University showed singing could positively affect older and isolated adults with neurocognitive disorders. The brain and physical benefits We feel good when we sing. So do our bodies. When people sing together, our bodies produce oxytocin, which is sometimes called the 'love hormone' because it contributes to our sense of feeling socially bonded with others. Our levels of cortisol, or the 'stress hormone,' are also decreased when people sing together. Singing can also help people to lose weight. Just an hour of singing while standing up burns around 140 calories for a person who weighs 150 pounds, according to the London Singing Institute. For those who weigh more, the number of calories increases. Furthermore, it can aid lung function, because it involves deep breathing and controlled use of muscles. It helps people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — which is a condition that can obstruct the airways — to manage symptoms and keep their airways open. In fact, singing is a boon for people with multiple health conditions. In people who had experienced strokes, singing was able help repair the language network of the brain, researchers at the University of Helsinki found. The practice increased the volume of the brain's grey matter, which plays a pivotal role in cognition and emotional regulation. Previously, MIT neuroscientists had found neurons in the human brain that respond to singing, but not other types of music. Melodies can fight maladies Singing and listening to music can lead to significant improvements in mental health and smaller improvements in physical health, according to Harvard Medical School. Singing accesses the left side of the brain, responsible for structuring sentences. Whereas, music activates just about all of the brain, including memory and emotion-based regions. It can support peoples' memory, word recall, and energy levels. Listening to music can reduce blood pressure, limit pain, and help to improve sleep quality, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Music listeners in a 2020 survey had higher scores for mental well-being and slightly reduced levels of anxiety and depression to people. 'Because music can activate almost all brain regions and networks, it can help to keep a myriad of brain pathways and networks strong, including those networks that are involved in well-being, learning, cognitive function, quality of life, and happiness,' Harvard's Dr. Andrew Budson notes. Your pitch is probably not as off as you might think. Researchers at the University of California Cruz found that a remarkable proportion of people singing 'earworm' songs from memory matched the pitch of the original songs. 'What this shows is that a surprisingly large portion of the population has a type of automatic, hidden 'perfect pitch' ability,' Matt Evans, a Ph.D. candidate who led the study, said in a statement.
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The truth about whether trendy nicotine pouches really do work as a cheap alternative to weight-loss jabs... and their side effects
One day last August, a young man arrived at a busy hospital in Toronto, Canada, displaying what doctors later described as 'bizarre' behaviour. Agitated, nothing he said made any sense. He was unable to sit upright in a chair – instead slumping on the floor – and was in a state of complete and total confusion.
Daily Mail
18 hours ago
- Daily Mail
ADHD drug mix-up led to my son, 6, receiving lethal dose of highly addictive meds... my warning to parents
A mix up at a pharmacy proved nearly fatal after a six-year-old's ADHD medication was accidentally swapped with a lethal dose of opioids. Sarah Paquin, a mother-of-three from British Columbia in Canada, said her son Declan had been taking dextroamphetamine to treat his attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder for years. Paquin picked up his prescription as she always did from a local Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy, and didn't notice anything unusual. However, when her husband David went to give Declan his daily medication the next morning, he noticed the pills were a different color. When he checked the label on the bottle, he realized it contained a high dose of the opioid hydromorphone and the name on the prescription was of a woman the family didn't know. Hydromorphone is around four times more potent than morphine. The medication has the possibility of causing life-threatening breathing problems. This risk is particularly high for children due to their smaller size and weight. 'It's just terrifying. We put our trust in these local professionals to be upholding their end,' Paquin said. She's urging people to double-check their medication labels. She told CTV News: '[The pills] were in his hands. 'He would have had this high dosage of morphine and been sent off to school, unknowingly... I think this was entirely avoidable.' Mr Paquin immediately returned the medication to the pharmacy, where the pharmacist gave him a refund but she was unable to find the correct prescription. The order had to be refilled. Commenting on the matter, a spokesperson for Shoppers Drug Mart's parent company, Loblaw PR, told 'Upon review with the store, we have learned this was a case of human error, one that never should have happened. 'We have controls in place to minimize risks like this - where the patient was handed the wrong prescription bag - and the associate will review these with employees to avoid a similar situation in the future. 'The owner of this location has reached out to the patient's parents to apologize for any undue stress this may have caused, and to outline the corrective steps.' The Paquin family say they have also been informed the pharmacist responsible for the error has been suspended. They now want to make their story public in a bid to warn other parents about the importance of being vigilant. Mrs Paquin says: '[Patients and parents should] double, triple, quadruple-check every prescription you pick up, whether you've been going to that pharmacy for years, whether it's a medication you've been on for years.' The Paquins have also filed a complaint with the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia about the incident. The organization regulates all pharmacies in the province. The FDA receives over 100,000 reports related to medication errors annually, with these contributing to up to 9,000 deaths. In 2022, a former Tennessee nurse was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a patient who was accidentally given the wrong medication. RaDonda Vaught, 37, was also convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult in a case that fixed the attention of patient safety advocates and nurses' organizations around the country. Vaught injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey instead of the sedative Versed on December 26, 2017.
