Pharmacy employees ordered to complete training after cat's death
By Jana Wagoner
The Virginia Board of Pharmacy has reprimanded two Leesburg Pharmacy employees for their role in the December 2007 death of a cat.
Pharmacy technician Mansel Felzer, of Leesburg, accidentally mixed Claws the cat's blood pressure medicine 10 times too strong, which contributed to his death Dec. 27. After an informal conference June 25, the pharmacy board ordered him to complete six hours of training on compounding medicine, in addition to the five hours of training he must complete to renew his license.
In addition to Felzer, pharmacist Martha Porter, of Round Hill, was ordered to complete four hours of training on compounding for dispensing the incorrect prescription to Gainesville resident Shirley Burt, Claws' owner. Porter also must complete 15 additional hours to renew her license.
Felzer and Porter both declined to request formal hearings on the matter.
Both have until Aug. 30 to complete their training and until Sept. 30 to provide documentation of their successful completion of the training to the Board of Pharmacy.
Burt had used the Leesburg Pharmacy for more than a year for Claws' prescription because it's the only pharmacy in the area with a compounding lab, where medications can be changed from pill form to liquid form or vice versa.
Burt always had Claws' medication changed from pill form to liquid form because liquid was easier to administer in the correct dosage. She would have had to cut the pills, leaving room for error.
She started giving him the incorrectly prepared medicine Dec. 23. On Dec. 26, she noticed Claws was walking funny.
Burt immediately took him to the Leesburg Emergency Animal Clinic, where veterinarians found that his heart rate had slowed considerably and his blood pressure was too low to register. Claws died at the clinic Dec. 27.
During her cat's final hours, Burt called Leesburg Pharmacy to try to rule out the medicine as the reason for the problem.
She said she was not expecting what she heard from the pharmacy.
“To my horror, they called me back and said that the dose that was given to me was 10 times stronger than prescribed,” Burt said.
She added that a manager called her and also sent her flowers.
Contact the reporter at jwagoner@timespapers.com