That was precisely my point. This is a bad habit in the US and needs to be changed. I wonder if the US pharmaceutical industry has a policy on use of the zero when writing decimal numbers less then one. If not, there should be as if this error happened once, it can happen every time.
Jerry ________________________________ From: Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:23:33 AM Subject: [USMA:44850] Re: Horse deaths in Florida Readingbetween the lines, the problem could lie in that the instructions required a dosage of .5 mg/mL sodium selenite instead of 0.5 mg/mL. (Note the absence of a leading zero). ________________________________ From:[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: 25 April 2009 12:51 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44846] Re: Horse deaths in Florida I have seen a couple of sources quoting an Argentine paper, in turn quoting an anonymous source. If they are correct, it was a 10X error, perhaps due to a decimal point error. Not clear if the error was in the prescription or made by the pharmacy. http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090425/ARTICLE/904251062/2050/SPORTS?Title=Selenium-is-focus-in-horse-inquiry Citing anonymous sources, the Argentine newspaper La Nacion reported Friday that the horses' lab-made supplements included 5 milligrams per milliliter of sodium selenite instead of the prescribed 0..5 milligrams. It should be noted that the whole thing was an attempt to mimic a French supplement which has not been approved for use in the US , and may have been illegal. --- On Fri, 4/24/09, Jeremiah MacGregor <[email protected]> wrote: From: Jeremiah MacGregor <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:44830] Re: Horse deaths in Florida To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Friday, April 24, 2009, 10:42 PM It sure would be a real embarrassment for the USA if it turns out to be a metric error. Jerry ________________________________ From:Harry Wyeth <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 12:23:01 AM Subject: [USMA:44823] Horse deaths in Florida As a horse owner, I am shocked by the deaths of the polo horses in Florida .. It seems there was a pharmacy error in compounding the stuff that was given the horses that died. I will try, and maybe others can also, to see if there was a metric/"traditional" mixup in preparing the compound. See http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7411620&page=1 HARRY WYETH
