New mother Andrea Benitez died in March of last year after taking penicillin she bought at a local market, without a prescription. Authorities report Benitez injected the drug, became very ill and died from a severe allergic reaction. Now the District Attorney's Office is using the case to get a public health warning to consumers.
This small market, barely visible from the street, is Acapulco's Produce Market. It's in Golden Hill near a gas station and a pawn shop. This is where authorities believe Benitez, who was 21 when she died, purchased the illegal penicillin.
When officers searched the store, they found hundreds of boxes of all kinds of prescription drugs stored in the back room. They also found a notebook with price lists of the drugs sold to customers at the tiny market.
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says the prosecution of the store owners should send a strong message to retailers selling prescription drugs illegally, and an even stronger warning to consumers.
Dumanis : Look at what they have here. They have a virtual pharmacy. Some of those drugs are expired. People don't know what they're getting when they're buying it off the shelves. So we need to encourage everybody to go to a doctor, a medical facility, to get your prescription drugs. Because if you get them over the counter, you don't know what you're getting.
But poor quality isn't the only concern when it comes to illegally purchased drugs -- and it wasn't the problem in the case of Andrea Benitez. Her fatal reaction to Respicil, an injectable form of penicillin, may have been prevented by a trained pharmacist.
Tricia Pummill , Prosecuting Attorney: The police were able to test the ampule, what was left in the ampule of the penicillin and the syringe, and determine that it was not an adulterated drug. So it wasn't an issue of the purity of the penicillin, she had an allergy to the penicillin.
Authorities believe the market's stock of prescription drugs were purchased in Mexico for resale here. All the medicines were labeled in Spanish. Poison control officials say one of the seized drugs -- a generic anti-inflammatory -- has actually been banned in the United States.
Lee Cantrell , CA Poison Control System: It's been off the U.S. Market since at least the mid-1960s because it has a high tendency to cause potentially fatal changes in blood cells.
The owners of Acapulco's Produce Market were ordered to close their two San Diego stores today.
The District Attorney's Office urges San Diegans to report anyone selling prescription drugs without a prescription to the Consumer Protection Unit at 619-531-4070.
