Warning over drug dangers
Health authorities advise you to 'substitute' painkiller to avoid using metamizol
LOCAL health chiefs have warned doctors not to prescribe a commonly used painkiller to Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians because of the danger of potentially lethal side effects.
LOCAL health chiefs have warned doctors not to prescribe a commonly used painkiller to Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians because of the danger of potentially lethal side effects.
The analgesic, generically called metamizol, is a common ‘go to’ drug in Spain, but for this key group there is a danger it can trigger a highly dangerous sepsis.
And Marina Salud, that represents the regional health authority at Dénia Hospital, has now issued a warning advising doctors to use a “substitute” painkiller for ‘at risk’ residents – although it has stressed it is not a ban
he move marks a victory for medical translator Cristina Garcia del Campo, who has been campaigning for an investigation of the adverse effects of the drug since the tragic death of a British client last year. She said: “It is a huge breakthrough.”
Her dedicated research into metamizol – which is banned in the UK, USA, Sweden and other north European countries – has earned her the thanks of pharmaceutical authorities in Spain and sparked the largest research project ever seen across the country.
Cristina said the painkiller – commonly available as Nolotil in Spain and other brand names include Dipyrone, Analgin, Novalgin and Dipirona – was seen as effective and safe, with less adverse reactions that could be caused by alternatives aspirin, paracetamol, and ibuprofen.
She said a British man was prescribed metamizol after cancer treatment and rapidly developed an infection. “I always used to say for British people are they OK to take that because it’s not something they take in their country and doctors always said ‘no problem’.”
Cristina said the patient started to be very ill. “He had this necrotising fascilitis. He was in hospital for a while but ended up dying of sepsis. That was on November 18 last year.
“I started to think about how many people I had known who had sepsis - I started to think this has become very common and it shouldn’t be. I thought it was really weird there were so many cases of sepsis so I started looking through the medical records of people I worked with and found they had this in common, they had all taken metamizol.”
BLOOD CELLS
She read an information leaflet inside a packet of Nolotil she had at home in Jávea and discovered it could cause “a very rare and rapid drop in white blood cells” and sepsis.
Cristina said: “I thought it could be very rare in Spanish people but not in British people because I knew so many people who had it (sepsis)... and we had a problem.”
Metamizol is banned in the UK, USA and other north European countries
She discovered online that William Smyth had died of septic shock while on holiday on the Costa Blanca in 2016 after being prescribed metamizol and developed sepsis and necrotising fascilitis – also known as the ‘flesheating disease’.
As a result of her initial research, Cristina told Dénia Hospital of her concerns. “They said they had never heard anything about it and as far as they were concerned the drug was very good and without problems.”
However, acting on the hospital’s suggestion, she contacted the ministry of health, the health departments of Spain’s17 autonomous regions and the medicine safety body Farmacia con Vigilante, enclosing all the information and saying it was of “exceptional importance”.
Cristina also threw the net wider to gain more information, starting to post messages on Jávea Connect and linked social media sites – extending the search to the Costa del Sol – asking for people’s experiences with metamizol.
“I had many answers – some even calling me a racist because I said Anglo-Saxons seemed to be affected more. I asked if anyone suffered adverse effects and had lots and lots of responses – I think there could be hundreds of cases.
“Some people have been on the verge of dying, thinking it is just it was the way it had gone after an operation, but in fact it was the medicine; doctors didn’t realise and patients didn’t realise – I investigated and put two and two together.
“As a consequence it is being studied, the biggest study of medicine that has ever been done in Spain - 100,000 cases over the last five years.”
TRANSLATOR
Cristina, who has worked as an English translator for 15 years and has completed a medical and pharmaceutical course, said she had just been observant in her work and put things together.
Her intervention with health authorities has seen her nicknamed “the courageous translator” after seeing a problem and “going for it”. She added: “I am like a dog with a bone.”
And she said: “Doctors did not know because no one thinks to notify them or how to notify them; I just thought it had to be linked.
“Now I am sure a lot of lives will be saved because of the awareness of these pa- tients and doctors as well. Some doctors are already asking about the nationality of patients before giving the drug, but there are many who do not know.”
Cristina thanked Jávea Connect for its “unbelievable” support and is still gathering information via email at cristinadrugresearch@gmail.com and asks for people to answer a questionnaire.
In its statement, Marina Salud said as a public hospital it was bound by the directives issued by the health department of the Valencia region.
It said in Spain, the authori- sation or not of any medicine was by order of the Spanish Agency of Medicines for the whole of the country.
"That Marina Salud, aware of the precautions in the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia on the administration of the generic medicine metamizol, and given the high percentage of British and Scandinavian residents in the Marina Alta, has issued a warning - not a prohibition - to its medical staff to preferably administer to this population another common painkiller, replacing metamizol".