Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will pay more than $250 million to settle more than 80 lawsuits alleging that the drugmaker sold propofol in a way that led colonoscopy patients at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and its sister clinics to develop incurable hepatitis C, according to multiple reports.
Rather than selling propofol in single-use-sized vials, the lawsuits alleged that Teva intentionally sold propofol in more profitable larger vials that encouraged doctors to reuse them rather than pour the unused drugs down the drain. Teva discontinued 10mL vials of the drug - a suitable amount for the average endoscopy case - in favor of 20mL and 50mL vials.
Nevada health officials and regulators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blamed the 2008 hepatitis C outbreak on "a combination of unsafe injection practices," including "the reuse of syringes to access vials" of propofol and the reuse of those vials for subsequent patients.
In 2010, a state grand jury indicted Dipak Desai, MD, who ran the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada at the time of the outbreak. Many of the hepatitis-related cases were linked to that colonoscopy clinic. Dr. Desai also faces federal charges over the outbreak.
Dan O'Connor
