Several celebrities have visited Capital Hill in the past two weeks to testify and represent causes. In many cases the celebrities went through tragedy and adversity and became committed and knowledgeable about issues that personally affected them. In other cases they became involved with specific causes they feel passionate about. Either way, they’re bringing attention to important issues and making a difference. I’d rather see a celebrity testifying in front of a committee than shopping, eating out, or worse getting a DUI, but unfortunately the latter get a lot more attention.

5/21/08: Breast cancer survivor Sheryl Crow testifies in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee to support a bill funding breast cancer research. Crow emphasized that she has no family history of breast cancer, and said “I want to know what causes this disease. We need to put more resources into figuring out what the environment has to do with breast cancer.” [Paraphrased from Houston Chronicle. You can view Crow’s testimony as a Real Media file thanks to C-Span.org]

5/21/08: Michael Douglas meets with Indiana Senator Richard Lugar at The Capitol to urge him to prevent the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as a director of the Ploughshares Fund organization [Description verbatim from WENN]

5/20/08: United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) goodwill ambassador Geri Halliwell and Care ambassador Christy Turlington hold a rally and press conference with congresswomen and fistula survivors. They urged support of a new bill promoting maternal health throughout the world. [Details paraphrased from Baltimore Sun]

5/14/08: Ed Norton testifies in front of the The House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. He is a trustee of Enterprise Community Partners, which was founded by his grandfather and builds affordable homes using green building practices for low income families. He said “The legacy of my generation is going to hinge on how we respond to these revelations that we’re not living sustainably, and that we’re altering the environment.” [Quote and details paraphrased from Peopletreefilms. Video is available on Globalwarming.house.gov - scroll to the last video in the list]

5/14/08: Dennis Quaid testifies in front of the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee urging Congress not to support a measure by the drug companies that would make them immune from lawsuits. He is suing company Baxter Healthcare Corp after a known second preventable mixup in which his newborn twins almost died after being given 1,000 times the dosage of Heparin, a blood thinner. Batches of Heparin have since been recalled for an unrelated incident in which the drug became tainted at a manufacturing plant in China, resulting in 19 known deaths. Dennis Quaid’s twins are healthy at five and a half months old, and are not thought to suffer lasting effects from the near-fatal overdose. [Details paraphrased from MSNBC. Quaid’s testimony is available on House.gov as a PDF file and the video is available as a Real Media file from C-span.org]

5/8/08: Cancer survivor, founder of a cancer advocacy nonprofit organization, and seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, testifies in front of The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Cancer: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century. [From Senate.gov, where there’s also a video of Lance’s testimony]

Thanks to WENN for these photos.

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Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly appeared in a segment on “60 minutes” last night about the medical error that almost killed their infant twins. 60 Minutes had an excellent report on the failure of the hospital, Cedars Sinai, and Baxter Medical, which manufactures the drug Heparin.

A preventable error
Dennis and Kimberly’s twins were born by surrogate on November 8, 2007 using Kimberly’s eggs and Dennis’ sperm, a choice the couple made after Kimberly suffered five miscarriages. At 12 days, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace were brought to the hospital with possible staph infections. They were almost killed when they were mistakenly given 10,000 units of Heparin, a blood thinner used to flush out IV lines, two separate times. The twins were supposed to be given just 10 units. The packaging for the vials that contain the 10 and 10,000 units of Heparin are hard to tell apart as both are colored in shades of blue and have small writing.

A Mother’s premonition
Kimberly said she had a mother’s premonition at 9:00 pm the night of the error that something was wrong, and she even wrote it down and the note was shown on 60 Minutes. She said “I just had this horrible feeling come over me, and I felt like the babies were passing. I just had this feeling of dread.”

They then called the hospital and were told that everything was fine, even though the nurses had realized that the babies were in danger around that time. It wasn’t until the next morning that the Quaids learned what happened when they went to visit their twins. They were met at the hospital room by a nurse, their pediatrician and a representative from risk management, which protects the hospital’s legal interests.

Four months later, the babies are fine
The twins are now living at home at four months old and are fine and have passed all medical tests, but it was touch and go for a while. They had to be kept in the hospital for over a month afterwards. Quaid said that when he visited them the next day he saw blood squirt from his son’s belly button 6 feet across the room and onto the wall. He says that he’s grateful for every day now and doesn’t take a day for granted. He said “If they hadn’t made it, there never would have been another happy day.”

Dennis Quaid’s quest
After Quaid’s ordeal, he started researching preventable medical errors to try and make sense of what happened. Quaid said that 100,000 people are killed every year in hospitals due to medical mistakes, and that “it’s bigger than AIDS… breast cancer… and automobile accidents” but that “no one seems to really be aware of the problem.”

The twin’s pediatrician was the first one to tell Quaid that three babies had died in Indiana from the same mistaken dosage of blood thinner that nearly killed his newborn twins. Quaid said it sent a chill down his spine.

Drugs were not recalled
Baxter International, the company that manufactures Heparin, did repackage the adult dose of Heparin with a bright red label after the incident in Indiana, but they failed to recall the existing stocks of the drug, some of which were given to the Quaid twins. The Quaids are now suing Baxter for not recalling the drug.

60 Minutes interviewed a representative from Baxter, who said they were not at fault for not recalling the drug because it was safe and that human error was to blame. A representative for Cedars Sinai acknowledged that the twins’ overdose was the result of a preventable error.

All stocks of Heparin have since been recalled, but it has nothing to do with the confusing labels. There was “possible contamination at a Chinese manufacturing facility that may have contributed to at least 19 deaths.”

Here is a clip of the part of the interview where the babies are shown, along with the full interview in two parts. Thanks to Redlasso.

Highlight of the babies:

Part 1 of Dennis and Kimberly Quaid on 60 Minutes

Part 2 of Dennis and Kimberly Quaid on 60 Minutes

Dennis Quaid has come out swinging, heavily criticizing the hospital that treated his newborn twins and gave them an incorrect dose of heparin. Heparin is a blood thinner, that was supplied to the hospital by manufacturer’s Baxter Healthcare Corp. Quaid is currently suing the makers of the drug for having all the different sized doses of heparin, for adults and children, packaged in similar containers. The similar containers confused staff at the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre, who then gave the wrong dose to the babies.

Thomas and Zoe were hospitalized a few days after birth because of an infection around their navels, where they were then given intravenous antibiotics to fight the infection. Blood thinners were also given to prevent clots blocking the IV line.

On November 18 two doses of heparin were given to the babies over the course of the day, while both parents were with them. They went home to rest, and called the hospital at 9pm to check with the nurses. The Quaids say they were told the babies were fine, but in fact they weren’t. They had been given an adult dosage of heparin and were beginning to ooze blood.

The Quaids were not told of the crisis until 6:30am the next morning, when they were met at the door by the hospitals risk management assessor, a nurse and a pediatrician.

Dennis on the hospital not telling them of the crisis until the next day:
“Our kids could have been dying, and we wouldn’t have been able to come down to the hospital to say goodbye,”

On the twins hospitalization:
“They were in incubators with cords attached to them and monitors, and you could barely hold them,” said Kimberly Quaid, 36. “Every time you’d move them, the alarms would sound. . . . The stress was overwhelming.”

“When you go into a hospital, you become like a child, like an infant in a way,” Dennis Quaid said. “The names of the drugs, we can’t even pronounce. . . . We put complete trust, and we are so vulnerable like a child, innocent and vulnerable in a hospital situation.”

On the twins recovery:
“We have our babies back, and they seem to be doing great, and they’re just a lot of fun to be with,” Dennis Quaid said.
“We really do feel that prayer saved them,” he later said.

The Quaids say that someone at the hospital leaked to the media that Thomas and Zoe were being treated, and the media presence caused additional stress. A hospital spokesperson responded:
Cedars-Sinai spokesman Richard Elbaum declined to comment on most of the allegations made by the Quaids. “Throughout the course of their children’s hospitalization and continuing today, we have reached out to the Quaids to discuss any concerns or questions they have,” he said. “We would like to continue to discuss all of these and any other concerns directly with the Quaids to identify and resolve any questions.”
Elbaum did say the hospital is investigating whether there was a violation of the twins’ privacy rights by leaks to the media. “We take very seriously any allegations of breaches of patient confidentiality and investigate these in a comprehensive manner,” he said.

Los Angeles Times

I can’t imagine anything more distressing than having your new babies taken to hospital, particularly when they had been so hard to produce. Due to Kimberly’s history of miscarriages the Quaids had their babies using a surrogate.

State regulators have found that the mistake occurred after technicians delivered the wrong dose of medication to the pediatric unit. Nurses say they are unsure of whether they read the labels on the vials of heparin. Another child was also overdosed, and made a full recovery.

I’m so happy to hear the babies have made a full recovery. They’re still being monitored for liver and kidney damage but it’s a good sign that none has shown up yet. I hope they’re safe and well.

Dennis Quaid’s two twins seem to be doing ok after they were given a massive overdose of the blood thinner Heparin in a shocking hospital oversight. At first it seemed to be touch and go for the less than two-week-old newborn boy and girl, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, who were given 1,000 times the dosage of Heparin. They were administered medication to counter the effects of the blood thinner after their second dose, and seem to have suffered no immediate ill effects. They will have to be monitored for long term problems including kidney and liver damage, but initial tests indicate that they have recovered. Three premature babies died in an Indiana hospital last year from the same overdose that was given to Dennis Quaid’s babies, so it clearly could have killed them.

The babies were born to a surrogate using Quaid’s sperm and his wife Kimberly’s eggs. Kimberly is just 36 and many of you wondered why she would need to use a surrogate. The National Enquirer is reporting that Kimberly suffered multiple miscarriages before she turned to a surrogate.

Dennis, already a dad with previous wife, actress Meg Ryan, “desperately wanted a child with wife of three years Kimberly Buffington - but she had suffered a number of miscarriages,” revealed a source.

“That’s why they turned to a surrogate and after much searching they found one…”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, December 10, 2007]

Thank goodness those newborns pulled through. When that article went to press the babies were still in the hospital. The latest news has the Quaids optimistic that they’ll be able to take them home for Christmas. That sounds awful to be apart from your newborns for that long. They were actually home with the Quaids when they rushed them to the hospital to be treated for an infection, which is when the overdose happened.

Courteney Cox is also said to have suffered many miscarriages before she was able to conceive Coco. She was eventually diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder antiphospholipid syndrome. (It is worth looking into if you have suffered a pregnancy loss. Often the only symptom is multiple miscarriages. It is easily treated, ironically, with blood thinners and/or low-dose aspirin.)

Dennis and Kimberly are shown at the American Dreamz premiere on 11/4/06, thanks to WENN.

Thanks to commentor StellaPurdy for noting that the gross overdose of the blood thinner Heparin that could have killed or seriously injured Dennis Quaid’s 12-day-old twins is not the first time that premature babies have been put in severe life-threatening danger from that specific medical error. Apparently Heparin is packaged in such a way that makes it very difficult to distinguish between adult and infant doses of the medicine, which look almost identical.

This case is similar to a September, 2006 incident at an Indianapolis hospital in which three premature infants died after given gross overdoses of Heparin:

The baby girl, Thursday Dawn Jeffers, died late Tuesday at Riley Hospital for Children five days after she was born at Methodist Hospital. She had been transferred to Riley once her condition worsened from receiving an adult dose of heparin, a drug routinely given to premature babies…

Two other girls, D’myia Sabrina Nelson and Emmery Miller, both less than a week old, died Saturday at Methodist’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

They were given the drug, which is often used to prevent blood clots that could clog intravenous tubes, after a pharmacy technician accidentally stored adult doses in the neonatal unit’s drug cabinet. Three other babies who also received too-strong doses were still in critical condition because they are premature but were not considered in danger from the overdoses, said Methodist Hospital spokesman Jon Mills.

[From CBSNews thanks to commentor Stellapurdy]

Unlike this sad case in Indiana, there have been no fatalities from this error at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA. Quaid’s twins are listed in stable condition, after being given medication to combat the effects of the heparin.

The Chief Medical Officer at Cedars-Sinai has issued a statement saying that seven patients were given the incorrect dose, and that only two patients, presumed to be Quaid’s twins, were adversely affected. They are said to be fine now:

Additional medical tests and clinical evaluation conducted on the two patients indicated no adverse effects from the higher concentration of heparin or from the temporary abnormal clotting function. Doctors continue to monitor the patients.

[Statement from Cedars-Sinai found on TMZ.com]

Medical errors in which mistaken doses are given and/or in which one package is confused with another that looks similar are common and can be deadly.

In 2005, Duke University hospital surgeons used tainted instruments that had been washed in used hydraulic fluid from the elevators instead of detergent for weeks. A technician had drained the fluid into empty detergent bottles and had placed them by the dumpster, where they were mistaken for detergent and returned to wash instruments. Dozens of patients suffered extreme lasting health problems from the error.

Dennis Quaid’s 12 day old newborn twins were the victims of an egregious hospital mistake. Little Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace were given one thousand times the regular dose of the blood thinner heparin not once but over two days in a gross oversight that could kill them. They are said to be in stable condition, so let’s hope they recover and suffer no long-term effects from this terrible case of hospital error:

TMZ has learned that Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins are fighting for their lives after being inadvertently overdosed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Sources tell us the twins — Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace — were accidentally given a massive does of Heparin, an anti-coagulant. Babies typically get 10 units. Our sources says they were each mistakenly given 10,000 units. The drug is used to flush out IV lines and prevent blood clots. We’re told one dose was given on Sunday morning, another on Sunday evening.

We’re told late Sunday night, both babies started to “bleed out.” Both babies are now at Cedars in the neo-natal intensive care unit where we’re told they are stable.

[From TMZ.com]

A recent study suggests that nearly 200,000 people die each year in US hospitals from “preventable medical errors,” which is more than the number of people who die from breast and lung cancer combined . If those are the number that died, just think of how many countless more people must be seriously injured due to common errors like the one that happened to Dennis Quaid’s babies twice.

Ironically Quaid does work with the charity “International Hospital for Children in New Orleans” in which he helps build medical clinics in Central America, bringing some children back to the U.S. for treatment they cannot get at home.

Dennis Quaid, 53, and his wife of three years Kimberly, 35, had the twins through a gestational carrier, which were conceived using their own egg and sperm. Our thoughts are with Dennis and his family for a speedy and full recovery for his babies.

Dennis Quaid and his wife are shown on 4/11/06 at the American Dreamz premiere, thanks to PR Photos. Some Details from Wikipedia