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Walgreens Gives 7 Year Old Methadone
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The family of a brain-damaged boy who received methadone instead of an anti-hyperactivity drug has asked for millions of dollars in sanctions against Walgreens.
Attorneys for Joshua Dunbar made the request Friday, after a mistrial was declared when a store pharmacist testified that a prescription that Walgreens said proved it could account for all the methadone in its Espanola store was forged.
Lawyers for the Dunbar family on Friday gave the court affidavits from jurors who said they had been prepared to return a verdict of perhaps $350 million or more in damages against Walgreens before the mistrial was declared.
Joshua was described as a bright, hyperactive 7-year-old who was supposed to get a generic version of Ritalin. Instead, his family's lawsuit claims, he got methadone, a drug used to wean addicts off heroin.
On Nov. 10, 2001, Joshua felt ill, went to sleep and couldn't be awakened. He spent six days in a coma and two months in hospitals where his lawyers say diagnostic tests confirmed strokes and permanent brain damage.
After the boy's hospitalization, state police seized vials of Joshua's medicine. One of them had the Ritalin clone, the other methadone.
The judge declared a mistrial Aug. 5 after the Walgreens pharmacist testified about the allegedly fraudulent prescription. The Walgreens lawyers withdrew from the case, disputing any allegation of wrongdoing. Walgreens has denied all allegations in the lawsuit.
Walgreens has argued that its procedures safeguarded against errors such as the one alleged by Dunbar's lawyers. Any injury to Joshua, the company argued, was not Walgreens' fault.
Rick Mascarenas, the Walgreens pharmacist, testified that a Walgreens attorney told him she had found a missing prescription that reconciled an apparent discrepancy in the store's methadone inventory.
Mascarenas, who was also named in the lawsuit, said he believed the prescription had been forged and that he told his supervisor about it.
"Nothing was done by anyone at Walgreens ... until Mr. Mascarenas decided to confess this conspiracy in open court on Aug. 5, 2003," the request for monetary sanctions says.
Michele Estrada, one-time pharmacist and Albuquerque attorney defending Walgreens, denied that her law firm was involved in any misconduct.
A Walgreens corporate attorney in Deerfield, Ill., did not return a message Saturday seeking comment. There was no answer at the company's legal department Sunday.
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