The mysterious death of patients around the world following a routine dosage of the common blood thinner, heparin, sent researchers on a frantic search to uncover what could make the standard drug so toxic. A researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was among a small group of scientists with the expertise and the high-tech equipment necessary to determine the source of the contamination.

An international team of researchers led by MIT has explained how contaminated batches of the blood-thinner heparin were able to slip past traditional safety screens and kill dozens of patients recently in the United States and Germany.

The Food and Drug Administration issued Friday and order to arrest all heparin products manufactured for import.

A commonly used medication that prevents blood clots from forming may also prevent existing clots from damaging delicate vein walls — and may accelerate healing in a clot-damaged area of vein wall, according to new research from the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center.

China State Food and Drug Administration is investigating the case of recalled Baxter's heparin and checking pharmaceutical ingredients used in the drug.

A mere mistake in records may lead to unexpected things. For example, the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research mistakenly cleared the heparin facility belonging to another company with a similar name.

Baxter Healthcare Corp. has to stop producing multidose vials of heparin. The medication causes severe allergic-type reactions in some patients.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have patented a synthetic version of the drug heparin, called Recomparin, that is less complex chemically and should be easier to produce than previous forms.