Heparin Recall Lawsuit Ends in $625K Award in First of Hundreds of Claims

The family of an Illinois man was awarded $625,000 by a Cook County jury in the first of hundreds of lawsuits over Baxter heparin that was recalled several years ago after it was discovered counterfeit ingredients were used to manufacture the blood thinner. 

The verdict was handed down Thursday in a heparin recall lawsuit brought by the estate of Steven Johnson, 63, against Baxter International Inc.

Johnson died in December 2007 after being given heparin made from ingredients imported from China, which the FDA later determined contained fake and potentially life-threatening chemicals. Hundreds of serious injuries and deaths were linked to the recalled heparin.

According to Johnson’s lawsuit and other similar cases filed on behalf of people throughout the United States, Baxter knew or should have known about the fake ingredients and prevented the heparin from being given to patients. During the trial, attorneys argued that internal company records that referred to it as “the cheap stuff.”

There are currently about 300 heparin lawsuits consolidated in Cook County Circuit Court against Baxter and an ingredient supplier, Scientific Protein Laboratories, LLC.

Additional cases in federal court over the Baxter heparin recall have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

The Baxter heparin recall was issued in January 2008 after a spike in adverse event reports surfaced involving reactions to the blood thinner, which is critical for a number of medical procedures and conditions. Dozens of serious adverse reactions and deaths were reported in connection with the contaminated heparin.

At the time of the recall, Baxter manufactured about half of the injectable heparin sold in the United States and it was discovered that the crude heparin used to make the drug contained a fake ingredient received from a plant in China, which was chemically similar to heparin, yet substantially cheaper. Top FDA officials concluded that the substitution of the fake ingredient that caused the heparin problems was likely done by virtue of economic fraud.

After the trial, Baxter acknowledged that some cases of legitimate harm from fake heparin existed, but said the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have determined very specific signs and symptoms of sufferers of Heparin contamination. Company officials stated they will defend against cases where the plaintiffs do not match those parameters.