Pharmacy Gives Pregnant Woman the Wrong Prescription, May Cause a Miscarriage or Birth Defects.

A Safeway pharmacy error may cause a pregnant woman to miscarry or have a child with severe birth defects. 

Mareena Silva, six weeks pregnant, was given Methotrexate, a drug that aborts early stage pregnancies, instead of her prescribed antibiotic.  After taking the drug she felt nauseous and checked the label.  She then noticed that she had been given the wrong prescription.  Apparently, the drug was for another woman with the same last name.  Doctors are still unsure of what the outcome will be, but they are hopeful that Mareena will have a healthy baby. 

The U.S Food and Drug Administration states that Medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually.  Many of these prescription errors occur because corporate pharmacies do not hire enough qualified staff to handle the high volume of prescriptions filled.  Often, in order to save money and increase profits, the medicines are filled by people who are not pharmacists and have very little training.  The pharmacist is supposed to review every prescription.  However, sometimes the pharmacist does not have enough time to do so. 

Misreading of labels when human life is at stake is unacceptable.  It is even worse when the misfilled prescription occurs because the pharmacist does not have time to do his or her job.