Pakistan Heart Drug Scare

Officials in Punjab province have arrested the owners of pharmaceutical companies making cardiac drugs suspected to contain heavy-metal contaminants.

Written byBob Grant

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As the death toll mounts among patients taking cardiac medications in Pakistan, government officials there have taken steps to stem the fatalities. Details coming out of Lahore, a metropolis at the epicenter of the trouble, are still sketchy, but dozens of patients have reportedly died from taking what are suspected to be heavy metal-laced heart drugs, and thousands more may be at risk. BBC News put the number of dead at 36, citing Pakistani officials, while news sources in the country are reporting anywhere from 27 to 72 deaths.

On Monday (January 23) Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency arrested the owners of two local pharmaceutical companies that were supplying at least four different cardiac drugs—Cardiovestin (simvastatin), Alfagril (clopidogrel), Concort (amlodipine) and Soloprin (aspirin), according to NewsPakistan—to ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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