Officials Expand Warning on Mislabeled Drug

State health officials on Saturday expanded their warning about a potentially lethal mix-up in the packaging of a prescription drug to include 14 clinics, a pharmacy and six doctors’ offices in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.

As a result of the packaging error at Medical Mart-Med Pak, of Costa Mesa, tablets of tolazamide, a drug used to treat diabetes, may have been inadvertently included in other drug containers, according to Stuart Richardson, chief of the Food and Drug Branch of the state Department of Health Services.

If taken improperly, tolazamide can cause low blood sugar levels resulting in coma and death, Richardson said.

Patients are urged to call their physicians immediately if they have any round, white, scored tablets of approximately 1/2-inch diameter imprinted with the code Z2979 that are not in containers labeled tolazamide, Richardson said.

Health officials discovered the packaging error last week after a Buena Park woman was admitted to a hospital in a coma. She had taken the tablets from a box labeled metronidazole, a drug used to treat infections. The box actually contained tolazamide.

All but 10 of the tablets believed to have been packaged improperly had been accounted for by Saturday afternoon, Richardson said.

He said the remaining mislabeled tablets may have been obtained from any of the following 21 places:

AmeriCare 1, 5635 Orangethorpe Ave., Anaheim.

AmeriCare 1, 1231 S. Harbor Blvd., La Habra.

AmeriCare 1, 5959 La Palma Ave., La Palma.

AmeriCare 1, 867 S. Tustin Ave., Orange.

Chino Emergicenter, 12111 Central Ave., Chino.

Costa Mesa Emergicenter, 131 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa.

Fountain Valley Emergicenter, 8970 Warner Ave., Fountain Valley.

Arroya Vista Clinic, 5224 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles.

Crenshaw Medical Arts, 2535 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles.

Dha Dental Clinic, 2823 S. Bristol St., Santa Ana.

Intercare Med, 4200 Barranca Parkway, Irvine.

Malibu Emergency, 23900 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu.

Rio Hondo Health Center, 9519-F Telegraph Road, Pico Rivera.

Southeast Pharmacy, 2675 E. Slauson Ave., Huntington Park.

Valley View Medical, 12062 Valley View St., Garden Grove.

Victor Coronado M.D., 7420 Seville Ave., Huntington Park.

Olina Harwer, M.D., 1125 E. 17th St., Suite E-109, Santa Ana.

Kathryn McGrath, M.D., 4359 Tweedy Drive, South Gate.

Earl Miller, M.D., 657 Camino de las Mares, San Clemente.

Alphonzo Nejera, M.D., 6505 S. Atlantic Ave., Bell.

John Shaw, M.D., 3719 Arlington 1, Riverside.

On Thursday, when state health officials first warned of the packaging error, they named only two clinics--the AmeriCare 1 clinics in Orange and La Palma--as places where patients may have received the mislabeled medicine.