A Las Vegas woman claims a CVS Pharmacy mistakenly gave her abortion-inducing pills instead of in vitro fertilization (IVF) medication to kickstart her pregnancy.
Timika Thomas and her husband have four children and decided to have another child in 2019.
“Progressing into her thirties, Thomas was having trouble getting pregnant. She had two ectopic pregnancies, which led to Thomas having her fallopian tubes removed. And even though they weren’t insured for the costs they would endure, they decided to pay for invitro fertilization – IVF,” 8 News Now reports.
Doctors inserted two eggs inside her body and gave her prescriptions to trick her body into producing enough hormones to induce pregnancy.
“You have to make yourself think it’s pregnant,” Thomas told 8 News Now.
“We’re taking a lot of supplements to make our bodies think it’s pregnant,” she added.
After Thomas picked up the prescription from her CVS branch in North Las Vegas and took the required doses, she noticed something was wrong.
Thomas said CVS mistakenly gave her an abortion-inducing drug and she lost both her babies.
Las Vegas pharmacy gives expectant mother abortion pills instead of IVF meds, she loses both babieshttps://t.co/oRXPW33c1x
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 6, 2023
8 News Now provided the details:
“I started cramping really bad,” Thomas said.
No stranger to the IVF process, she expected cramping, but this was not the pain she anticipated.
“My cramping went beyond that,” she said. “It was extreme. It was painful.”
Thomas checked the bottle, looked up the name of the prescription on the label, and the results of her internet search began a yearslong process of mourning.
“The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions,” Thomas said.
AdvertisementDocuments obtained by the 8 News Now Investigators outline how two technicians and two pharmacists made a series of errors that led to Thomas being given the wrong medication, which essentially terminated her budding pregnancy on the spot.
“They just killed my baby,” she said to herself at the time. “Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”
This is absolutely heartbreaking.
A Las Vegas mother pregnant with twins was given chemical abortion pills in a pharmacy mix up.
Her children that she desperately wanted were killed by a pharmacist.
Abortion will never be healthcare. https://t.co/VAHgmOwnOx
— Clare Anne Ath (@clareanneath) October 4, 2023
The Post Millennial added:
One technician had incorrectly believed she knew the generic name for the brand prescribed, and typed the wrong name onto the prescription. This mistake was not caught by one pharmacist, and another failed to counsel Thomas when she came to pick it up.
“It [the error] would have been caught because then they would have had to have the medicine in their hand,” Thomas said. “And they would have said, ‘Oh, this is Misoprostol or Cytotek, have you taken this before?’ And I would have said ‘no.’”
Thomas filed a complaint with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, which met in September. The two pharmacists were fined and their licenses were suspended provisionally. The pharmacists will have their licenses reinstated if they avoid disciplinary action over the next year, pay fines, and take continuing education credits.
In a statement to the outlet, CVS said, “We’ve apologized to our patient for the prescription incident that occurred in 2019 and have cooperated with the Nevada Board of Pharmacy in this matter. The health and well-being of our patients is our number one priority and we have comprehensive policies and procedures in place to support prescription safety. Prescription errors are very rare, but if one does occur, we take steps to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety.”
The state’s pharmacy board fined CVS $10,000, the maximum financial penalty allowed in the state.
After the testimony provided by Thomas, “the two pharmacists were fined and had their licenses suspended provisionally,” 8 News Now noted.
“If both pharmacists avoid disciplinary action over the next 12 months, pay fines and take continuing education credits, their licenses will be reinstated,” the outlet stated.
“It’s a human error,” one pharmacist testified while sobbing.
“It was just a human error and I’m so sorry.”
The sorry wasn’t enough for Thomas.
“All I got was a sorry,” she said, according to 8 News Now.
“It will never be good enough.”