Drug mixup in Spain causes werewolf syndrome in children | 06 September, 2019

In Spain, at least 17 children developed a form of werewolf syndrome (a rare and curious condition that causes excessive hair growth) after they were given a wrong medication to treat heartburn. The drug the children were wrongly given was meant to stop hair loss.

Spanish health authorities have blamed the packaging mix-up on Farma-Química Sur, a pharmaceutical company in the Malaga region of Spain.

  Spain’s health minister, María Luisa Carcedo, said Farma-QuímicaSurhaderroneously distributed to pharmacists minoxidil, a drug that helps fight baldness, that was labeledomeprazole, a drug that treats acid reflux.

The mislabeled medicine was recalled in July and the company was closed down until an investigation into the error is completed. “We have immobilized all the batches,” Carcedo said.

The children who took the mislabeled medicine, some of them babies, began growing hair all over their bodies. The parents of these children plan to sue Farma-Química Sur. Some families have filed criminal lawsuits against the company.

Farma-Química Sur’s inspection by the Spanish health authorities in June 2019 uncovered that the firm was importing active ingredients, without following proper procedures, from a Chinese supplier which had failed an EU GMP inspection in 2016. The firm’s cleaning procedures were also found to be inadequate and there “was no active participation of management in the quality system”.

Meanwhile, the Spanish dermatology association said the unwanted hair should start to fall out about three months after the children stop taking the drug.

(Source: PharmaCompass)