Yzabelle Bostyn
PETE Packer, a 60-year-old expat, has been riding motorbikes since he was 11 years old.
In 2017, the language teacher was riding along Malaga’s A-7 when his engine suddenly stopped.
He was thrown 10 metres in the air, sliding across the tarmac at 110mph.
Despite breaking multiple bones he was miraculously let out of Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria, Malaga, that very same day.
READ MORE: British expat mother is livid after her toddler is given ‘lethal’ Nolotil painkiller in Spain
Photo: Peter Packer
Little did he know, his nightmare was just beginning.
The next day, he awoke to a ‘terrible fever’, ‘couldn’t stop shaking’ and was having frequent ‘convulsions’.
Confused, he consumed over eight litres of water but was unable to keep anything down.
“I thought I was dying, I was sick, shaking and sweating all over,” he told the Olive Press.
“As a single parent it was scary, I couldn’t look after my daughter.”
After fainting in the shops, the British-Kiwi decided enough was enough and went to Hospital de Alta Resolucion, Benalmadena.
After several blood tests, he was informed he has ‘no white blood cells’ and it seemed like he had an ‘AIDS like’ illness.
Puss was soon streaming out of his eyes and nose, as doctors informed him that an ‘atom bomb’ of bacteria was ‘having a party in his body.’
“No one could figure out what was going on,” he said.
“It wasn’t until one of the doctors mentioned he had read about Nolotil killing ‘guiris’ that they decided to take me off it.”
After four days in and out of consciousness, Pete’s immune system finally began to recover.
But years on, he still experiences side effects of this harrowing ordeal including infections and experiences chronic fatigue.
Shaken, he listed an allergy to Nolotil on his medical records.
So when he had another motorbike accident in 2023, he thought he was safe.
After his bike fell on him, tearing a muscle in his glutes, he donned a ‘No Nolotil’ wristband and headed to Hospital de Alta Resolucion in search of pain relief.
Despite telling triage staff and his attending doctor he was allergic to the drug, he was still prescribed it.
‘Horrified’, he asked the doctor why, ‘oh I’m so sorry’, the doctor reportedly responded, ‘I just give it to people automatically, out of habit.’
Some five years after the 2018 decree demanding medical professionals do a thorough background check to make sure no one of northern European descent is given the drug, Pete was ‘appalled’.
“People are routinely and exclusively being given this drug that kills thousands,” he said.
“Doctors are ignoring and people will die.”
Nolotil is known to induce agranulocytosis in people of northern European descent, reducing the amount of white blood cells in the body to dangerous levels and depleting the capacity of the immune system.
It is currently under investigation in the Spanish criminal and national court, after tireless campaigning by the Association for Drug Affected Patients (ADAF) and the Olive Press.
“I’m lucky,” said Pete.
“I’m fluent in Spanish so I could tell them not to give me Nolotil. But if I was just on holiday, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
