Contaminated cough syrups, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment have resulted in 34 deaths in Panama.
Not a good time to have the flu in Panama - 24 types of medications produced by Panama's national health system have been recalled due to contamination with a chemical cousin of antifreeze - diethylene glycol - used to keep glue and cosmetics moist. Production has been suspended until the source of the contamination is identified.
Diethylene glycol ingestion leads to nausea and diarrhea, relaxation of facial muscles, kidney failure, paralysis and often death. It is believed that 100,000 bottles of cough syrup are contaminated, 20,000 of which have not been recovered. On October 12, the CDC traced illness back to cough syrup and soon realized other products were also involved.
Source:
Will Weissert. The Associated Press. Published in The Chronicle Herald, Saturday, October 28, 2006.
