Free Republic

Top image depicts the chemical structure of chondroitin sulfate, the contaminant found in batches of heparin. Bottom image shows the chemical structure of normal heparin. Graphic courtesy / Ishan Capila, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Click here to enlarge image (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers has confirmed that a contaminant found in several batches of the blood-thinner heparin is linked with severe allergic reactions in patients, dozens of whom died after receiving the tainted drug. A study conducted by the researchers provides epidemiological evidence that contaminated batches of heparin produced in China sickened hundreds of people, said MIT Professor Ram Sasisekharan....

Federal drug regulators have seized batches of the tainted blood thinner heparin from a Cincinnati manufacturer that used a Chinese-made ingredient linked to 81 U.S. deaths earlier this year. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday that it took 11 lots of heparin from Celsus Laboratories that was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), a chemical used only to make fake blood thinner. The ingredient mimics heparin's anti-clotting properties but can cause severe allergic reactions and dangerously low blood pressure, according to reports the agency received beginning in January. No patients were harmed by the tainted Celsus products, which...

As health inspectors probe nearly 100 deaths tied to contaminated heparin, researchers develop safer version in the lab Blood thinners made from the complex carbohydrate heparin have been routinely used in the U.S. since the 1930s to keep veins, arteries and lungs clear of potentially fatal clots and to reduce the amount of time that kidney failure patients spend on dialysis machines. These drugs are so popular that there is not enough heparin—the active pharmaceutical ingredient (primarily derived from pig intestines) that enables these blood thinners to stop or prevent blood from clotting during medical procedures and treatments—to meet the...