Dangerous Drug

The best drug to cure dread staphylococcus bloodstream infections is sulfathiazole, a sulfanilamide relative which came out last year.

Last December Winthrop Chemical Co., a reputable Manhattan firm, shipped out 410,000 sulfathiazole tablets throughout the U. S. Several days later a doctor complained that the pills made a patient dangerously drowsy. Company chemists discovered to their horror that they had been accidentally mixed with a powerful sleeping powder, phenobarbital (popularly known as luminal).* In large doses, phenobarbital, like other sedatives, may prove fatal.

The contaminated batch was clearly marked MP029. The company said nothing to the Federal Government or to the American Medical Association, but quietly wired every wholesaler who had received the drug to return it. By that time some of the contaminated sulfathiazole had already been sold. For three months doctors in the U. S. knew nothing of the company's mistake.

Last week a country doctor in Missouri wired the A. M. A. that one of his patients had died after receiving a dose of sulfathiazole. A. M. A.'s Editor Morris Fishbein suspected that something was wrong with the drug. He promptly got in touch with the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, found that they had heard of the poisonous drug from the Massachusetts Health Department only four days before, already had sent hundreds of inspectors out to gather up the contaminated tablets.

Dr. Fishbein telegraphed doctors all over the U. S. to warn them. Immediately he received seven wires in reply, telling of suspicious cases in which the drug had been used. Besides the Missouri patient, one baby had died. Several other pneumonia patients who were given the tablets had died, but the doctors were not positive that the drug had killed them. At week's end A. M. A. had not yet estimated the exact number of casualties, had begun to suspect a second lot of tablets, MP118.

All other sulfathiazole on the market is perfectly safe. The Federal Food and Drug Administration has not yet decided what steps it will take against Winthrop Chemical Co.

Last week 43,000 cases of measles were reported from all sections of the U. S. This figure is slightly less than the all-time high of 1938. Since the current epidemic has not yet run its course, it may be the worst in U. S. history.

* The incident reminded many people of a 1937 scandal, when a Southern chemical company mixed sulfanilamide with diethylene glycol (a material used in anti-freeze solutions), sent it to drugstores without making adequate tests. From drinking the poisonous combination, at least 73 people died.

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