Quaids file lawsuit over baby drugs mix-up

His newborn twins are going to survive, but actor Dennis Quaid and his wife filed a lawsuit yesterday against the maker of the drug that nearly killed their children when they were just two weeks old. The infants, born November 8, were hospitalised 12 days later at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after accidentally being given an adult dose - 1,000 times the recommended dose for infants- of Heparin, a blood thinning drug. The vials containing the adult dose and the weaker derivative were the same size and bore similar labels.
 
The actor and his wife Kimberly filed the lawsuit in Chicago accusing Baxter Healthcare Corporation of negligence in packaging the drug. The Quaids say the company should have recalled the vials after three children died in Indiana following a nearly identical dosage mix-up.
 
The Quaids are seeking more than $100,000 in damages though their attorney insisted the case "isn't about money," but rather to draw public attention to the danger. The twins, Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone, who were born via a surrogate, had been given Heparin to treat staph infections.

Quaid's latest film, Vantage Point, is a thriller about an assassination attempt on the American president in which he plays a secret service agent. Co-starring Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver, it  is due to open in the New Year. ·