What has happened to the supply of heparin based products in Australia?
A. Recently in the USA and Europe, some patients who received intravenous heparin experienced a life-threatening reaction. The reports of these reactions were investigated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who found that some of the heparin products were contaminated with a substance known as “over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate” or OSCS. Since then this contaminant has been shown to be the cause of these serious reactions. Following these reports Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), commenced testing of all supplies of heparin based products in Australia to determine if any had the contaminant. A small number of products were found to have the contaminant present and these products have been recalled from the market. Q.
