Colorado 8-year-old dies after pharmacy
Colorado 8-year-old dies after pharmacy allegedly gives him 1,000 times his usual medication dosage for sensory processing disorder
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| Jake Steinbrecher, an 8-year-old boy from Loveland, Colorado, died after a Good Day pharmacist allegedly gave him 1,000 times his usual dosage of his medication. |
An 8-year-old boy in Colorado died this month after a local pharmacy made a massive error in his medication dosage.
Jake Steinbrecher overdosed on his usual medication of Clonidine used to treat his sensory processing disorder — a drug his parents didn't want him to take to begin with.
Clonidine is often used to treat high blood pressure as well as ADHD symptoms.
"Drugging our child definitely wasn't something we wanted to do," his mother Caroline Steinbrecher told the Daily News.
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| Jake Steinbrecher in the hospital. |
"The Clonidine was a compromise I could live with, because it was a non-addictive drug," she added.
Steinbrecher said that the drug is usually considered safe for children under the age of 8, but not at 1,000 times a normal dosage.
"A lot of times this is a bedtime dose," she explained. "If given at 1,000 doses you would wake up to a dead child."
Last Halloween was the first time Jake was given a liquid version of the drug. He was formerly taking a tablet, but his new dosage was no longer available in tablet form, according to Steinbrecher.
The family had sought Good Day Pharmacy in Loveland to fill the syrup-version of the prescription, which should have had .03 mg per 2 milliliters dosage — or about half of a teaspoon, but instead had 30 mg per 2 milliliters, Steinbrecher explained.
"The problem with compounding in pharmacies is that they are not tightly regulated enough," Steinbrecher explained.
Jake had a terrible reaction to the massive dosage that put him in the hospital during the first week of November 2015.
After that time, his life was changed forever as the high dosage caused his brain to swell.
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| Jake Steinbrecher and his mother Caroline Steinbrecher. |
"Jake and his family suffered dearly during his initial hospitalization, but the family was unprepared for the long term consequences which included his sudden death by an autoimmune response believed to have been triggered by the [PHARMACIST'S]error," the family said in a press release.
Jake died on June 8.
The night he passed, Steinbrecher remembered taking Jake to dance class where he practiced for an upcoming recital.
"That was honestly so important to him, to make it to that practice," she told the News.
"He died before he was able to perform."
To remember Jake's gift for dance, Steinbrecher created the Jake Steinbrecher Dance Fund to make attending dance classes possible for all children.
"I lost my little boy so I'm more than willing to make sure other little kids could get the chance to dance if they want to," she said. "I think if I had to ask my son that's he would want."
Steinbrecher said the pharmacist at Good Day wrote down that she had done everything correctly. The process to check her errors was extensive, according to Steinbrecher.
"It's kind of disturbing that there isn't more in place, that there isn't more that happens before it goes out the door," she said.
The hospital submitted a sample of the medication to a laboratory for study on Nov. 1, 2015.
The pharmacist responsible for the error is listed with an active license in Colorado's Department of Regulatory Agencies and Steinbrecher believes she still works at Good Day.
The DORA and Good Day Pharmacy did not respond to the Daily News request inquiring about an investigation. The DORA system shows that no discipline or Board Actions are on file for the pharmacist.
source: nydailynews
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