Coroner: Unlicensed drugs must be regulated

A CORONER called yesterday for better policing of “off-licence” drugs, often used in chemotherapy treatments, after a cancer patient died after a dosage error.

Cork city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said she will bring the issue to the attention of Health Minister Mary Harney.

Cork Coroner’s Court heard how Eileen Noonan, 53, from Kilmallock, Co Limerick, was given a massive overdose of the chemo- therapy drug Idarubicin, after a pharmacist at Cork’s Mercy University Hospital (MUH) misinterpreted dosage directions.