On November 16, the Ministry of Health, after investigating the circumstances of the death of a 19-year-old patient at the Wolfson hospital, published a message stating that “it is impossible to establish a connection between the death of the girl and taking Optalgin.”
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that the Risk Management Unit in the Department of Pharmacology is constantly and closely monitoring reports of side effects and safety information for medicines containing dipyrone in Israel and around the world, and continues to discuss the risk-benefit ratio of these drugs.
On November 9, a 19-year-old girl was taken to the Wolfson hospital in a serious condition. Doctors suggested that the optalgin, which the patient had taken before arriving at the hospital, caused damage to the bone marrow. For several hours, the doctors fought for the patient’s life, but in the end they were forced to declare her dead.
Note that optalgin (in other countries known as analgin, ronalgin, dipyrone) in many countries is sold only by prescription due to dangerous side effects, one of which is agranulocytosis, which leads to a sharp drop in the level of immune protection, up to its complete disappearance. In the US, dipyrone has been banned due to the risk of agranulocytosis since 1977. In Israel, they believe that the chance of developing agranulocytosis is one in a million.