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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Chemotherapy Underdosing Leads to New Conditions for Drug Companies

Temporary new conditions have been put into place for companies creating medications, after five hospitals in New Brunswick and Ontario administered watered down chemotherapy drugs to more than 1200 patients.

Heath Canada is saying that companies can keep making the drugs can if it's done within a hospital and meets provincial requirements, outside the hospital under the eye of provincially licensed pharmacist or in a way that's in keeping with licensing and manufacturing requirements of the Food and Drugs Act. Dr. Supriya Sharma, senior medical adviser with Health Canada, says the conditions mean the companies can keep providing service until a long-term plan is figured out.

Marchese Hospital Solutions gave the drugs to the hospitals, but they say the problem wasn't with their drugs, it was with how they were administered. Sharma admitting that the new conditions might not have prevented the underdosing, as Marchese was believed to have been working under appropriate supervision.

Pile-Up On Highway 1

A three-car pile-up near Fox Farm Road has sent one woman to hospital.

Rothesay Regional Police tells CHSJ News that traffic heading westbound slowed down on Highway 1 for unknown reasons, and and one vehicle struck the back of another vehicle, causing a chain reaction.

Police say that the woman in the middle vehicle was taken to Saint John Regional Hospital with injuries and a person in the front vehicle has minor injuries. The incident has been handed over to the mounties.

Power Outage Hits Many Homes

Over 1000 people are without power in Saint John, Rothesay and French Village.

NB Power reporting that 6 power outages have affected 1177 of their customers. The unplanned outages started at around 9 p.m. last night. They're estimating that the lights will be back on around lunchtime.

Update: NB Power's Kathleen Duguay tells CHSJ News that that the cause was a broken pole on one of the main service lines in the French Village.

Update #2: Duguay tells CHSJ News they're now aiming to have power restored between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Second Suspect in Boston Marathon Bombings In Custody

The city-wide manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Bombings is over. Boston Police announcing via Twitter that 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody on Friday night.

He was found holed up in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, where police say he exchanged gunfire with them for an hour before being captured. Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted, "We got him."

 He's described as being in serious condition.