She continued: “So I Googled the name that was on the bottle to see if that was a side effect and come to find out Cytotec is used for ABORTIONS. I was given the WRONG medication.”
“Now I might lose my two embryos that I transferred on July 23,” she wrote in the complaint.
Speaking to CNA Monday, Thomas said she called the pharmacy to complain after she had taken Cytotec. She also began searching online for how to reverse an abortion and called a hotline for abortion pill reversal.
The hotline told her she needed to take progesterone injections. CVS told her the same thing.
The next day, CVS had a technician hand-deliver the injections to her residence.
“But obviously by that time, it was too late,” she told CNA.
It’s unclear whether the Cytotec killed the babies or if the embryos just didn’t survive the IVF process. Nevertheless, Thomas’ next pregnancy test came back negative, she told CNA.
A series of mistakes
Testimony by staff at CVS and other documents filed with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy detail a host of mistakes that led to the abortion drug being given to Thomas, who is identified in the documents as “TC.”
Haydee Martinez, a technician at the pharmacy, “performed the data entry” for Thomas’ prescription and incorrectly recorded the drug her doctor ordered as misoprostol as opposed to Endometrin, according to a case document.
The case document said Martinez mistakenly believed misoprostol was the generic drug version of Endometrin.
(Story continues below)
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Another technician, Vanessa Cardozo, incorrectly entered the prescribed dosage and instructions for an antibiotic Thomas was supposed to take, the document said.
Those mishaps triggered a system warning that should have alerted the pharmacist that mistakes had been made. However, Sandra Le, pharmacy manager at the local CVS, “overrode a system warning pertaining to the data entry error relating to misoprostol,” the case document said.
In addition, on the day Thomas went to pick up the medication at the pharmacy, the pharmacist on duty, Khanh Pham, neglected to counsel the patient on the medication, according to the document.
Pham is no longer with the company, but the court documents do not explain why.
Le said in her testimony that she was alerted to the situation at 9:40 p.m. on the day that Thomas took the misoprostol by the pharmacist on duty, Chris Petersen.
Petersen became aware of the misoprostol mistake because Thomas called him in tears, upset that she had experienced cramping and concerned that she had taken the incorrect medication, according to his testimony.