29 Dec, 2016 @ 10:28
1 min read

Expat blasts Spain for lethal painkiller that poisoned his bone marrow and left him for dead

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David Parkinson

A FORMER British expat has spoken out against a deadly drug that is still being prescribed in Spain, despite being banned across the world.

David Parkinson 52, was given Nolotil by a Spanish GP to help with pain relief following a car accident in 2002.

But he soon developed spot sores and blisters all over his body, and had to be rushed to hospital after he collapsed in his bathroom.

The anti-inflammatory drug used for the treatment of mild pain had triggered toxic poisoning of his bone marrow, causing him to stop producing white blood cells which are used to fight infection.

“I lost over seven stone and was diagnosed with septicaemia, pneumonia and a very low white blood cell count,” David said.

Doctors told him there was nothing more they could do, and advised his family to say their goodbyes.

“It was traumatising having my family huddled around my bed saying their goodbyes,” David added, “It was soul destroying.”

David recovering in hospital bed beside big brother

Refusing to give up, his family scraped together €17,700 to get him back to a Manchester hospital, where David said he ‘shockingly’ recovered, although it took him a year to fully recuperate after suffering from daily epileptic fits.

“My temperature was so high that the doctors would cover me in ice. It was very scary and traumatic.”

“I was given no warning about the drug,” he said.

“I resent the fact that the drug is dangerous and it was given to me. People aren’t aware of the side effects. It has killed Irish and British people and it almost killed me too, yet the Spanish are still giving it out.”

Nolotil is banned in the UK, US, Australia, Ireland and other EU countries.

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

7 Comments

  1. Now might be a good time to have the Spanish Government request the pharmaceutical companies to provide information/instructions in BOTH Spanish & English (English being official EU language & widely understood throughout the Western World). I know they have the information/instructions in English as I’ve purchased identical medication (made by same company) in Saudi Arabia. The leaflet enclosed was in English.

  2. English is not “the” official language, it is “an”official language. Dutch, French, German, and Italian were the first official languages, and predate English by some 15 years. English is currently the dominating language used by EU civil servants, but French will likely replace it, indeed French and German are becoming more widely used in internal communications, especially once Brexit is (finally) invoked. If the EU are considering giving special passports to ex-EU members, then English could perhaps stay as a non-official language. No other EU country currently has English as their official language.

  3. The EU failed from day one to have a common language. The USA had one language from the beginning, English although there were many Dutch (what was New York called in the beginning?) and Germans. Without a common language any kind of union is doomed. The Romans insisted that to do business with them, you had to speak Latin, that’s why all west European languages contain lots of derivations from Latin at least.

  4. Translations in the EU mainly rely on English as a “bridge” language, but we need to differentiate between translation services and the official languages of each respective country.

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