Quaid Campaigns for Patients' Rights

Actor DENNIS QUAID is calling on the U.S. government to preserve patients' rights to sue drugmakers for injuries.

The actor's twin babies had to fight for their lives last year (Nov07) when they were mistakenly given a near-fatal overdose of blood thinner Heparin, and Quaid insists the mishap could have been avoided if there was a better system of marking medicines.

California regulators fined hospital bosses $25,000 (GBP12,500) after concluding the failure of staff at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to follow their own procedures resulted in incorrect doses of the drug being administered to Quaid's infants and other children.

Quaid and his wife Kimberly Buffington have sued Baxter International Inc, the maker of the blood-thinning drug given to his twins

On Wednesday (14May08), Quaid said victims of harm from medicines should be able to seek damages from manufacturers in state courts.

He says, "I believe if preemption of lawsuits is allowed to prevail, it will basically make all of us, the public, uninformed and uncompensated lab rats."