Product Contamination

French, Danish and Italian authorities began recalling batches of heparin or its active ingredient that may be contaminated, becoming the latest countries to remove from shelves a blood thinner associated with at least 19 deaths. "It's a precautionary measure right now," Martin Harvey-Allchurch, a spokesman for the European Medicines Agency, said. The suspect ingredients were reportedly from China, he said. There have been no reports of related fatalities in Denmark or Italy, he said.

Researchers have halted two gene therapy experiments at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn., because of fears that genetically engineered cells being injected into children with cancer might be contaminated with the AIDS and hepatitis viruses. The self-imposed shutdown at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital extends beyond a previous federal research suspension there, imposed by the Food and Drug Administration last month.

Police plan to investigate workers at a government laboratory in Panama after 21 people died from taking cough and allergy syrups tainted with a chemical used in brake fluid, a senior official said. The deaths of mostly elderly men, who suffered kidney failure, puzzled medical authorities in the last month until U.S. experts traced the cause this week to generic sugar-free cough syrups made by Panama's social security system. The medicines were adulterated with diethylene glycol.

U.S. health officials said they were investigating an additional 67 cases of a potentially blinding eye infection that's been linked to a Bausch & Lomb Inc. cleaner for contact lenses withdrawn from stores last week. The cases now range over 29 states, said a spokesman for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A probe into the Greenville, S.C., plant where the solution is produced may take a month longer, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration said.

The United States' supply of vaccine for the impending flu season took a hit Thursday when Chiron Corp. said it had found tainted doses in its factory. Chiron said it would delay shipment of nearly 50 million shots -- about half the supply health officials had hoped to have on hand this year. Chief Executive Howard Pien said the company hoped to ship 46 million to 48 million doses by early October, about a month later than usual, pending the results of an internal investigation.

On April 13 Bausch & Lomb asked retailers to temporarily halt sales of its ReNu With MoistureLoc contact lens solution. The announcement came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that it was investigating 109 suspected or confirmed cases of Fusarium keratitis, occurring over 10 months. (Since then, the number has risen to 176.) Fusarium keratitis is a potentially serious infection of the cornea.

California issued a health warning Wednesday and ordered a Los Angeles company to stop selling or distributing dried rattlesnake products found to contain deadly salmonella bacteria. Laboratory tests of the dried rattlesnake powder and capsules produced by Herbs of Mexico detected heavy concentrations of the bacteria, which are common in reptiles, said state Health Director Molly Joel Coye. The bacteria apparently survived because the product was inadequately pasteurized, Coye said.

An E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least eight children has been traced to unpasteurized milk from a dairy that had been ordered last summer to stop distributing the product, health authorities said in Woodland. The dairy was shut down. People who drank unpasteurized, or raw, milk from the Dee Creek Farm were asked to contact their health department, whether they were sick or not.

Apria Healthcare Inc.'s liquid oxygen plant in Rochester, N.Y., is in "serious violation" of federal law, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in the seventh warning letter sent to the company this year. The medical oxygen processed at the facility is considered adulterated because Apria workers don't correctly test the bulk liquid oxygen it buys for strength and other qualities before shipping it out for use in patients' homes, the FDA said.

More than 1,000 Northern California small-plane pilots bought contaminated Chevron fuel last month, and officials were still trying to track down several dozen aviators. The Federal Aviation Administration emphasized Wednesday that no crashes have been traced to the fuel, which was improperly mixed last month at Chevron's Richmond refinery. "As of right now, contaminated fuel is not suspected in any of the accidents that have occurred since May 16," agency spokesman Hank Verbais said.