The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found some hospitals and medical centres of population are still potentially contaminated heparin among its supplies, which shows that they did not respond to recall notices and warnings about blood thin made by Baxter International.

A spokesman for the FDA said that medical services in California sent a letter on May 2 on gaps in the response recall, and when the track with a check, they found that “more than a handful of hospitals has not removed all contaminated with heparin, “reported the Wall Street Journal.

He said he found the product on a “collision of cars, catheter laboratories, and even a hospital pharmacist of the platform.”

Heparin is used in operating rooms and kidney dialysis centers to stop potentially fatal blood clots. The contaminated product, made by Baxter International, has been linked to severe allergic reactions and more than 80 deaths, and investigations by the FDA, which are based on the results of several laboratories, suggest that this may be due to a pollutant has been found in raw ingredient supplied by a company in China.

The FDA has issued reminders because there are shortcomings in the response to warnings and recalls by the agency and the manufacturer, and also because of information from the California Department of Health.

The rest, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, asked everyone:

“Spread the word about recalls from heparin injectable products and solutions heparin flush that may be contaminated with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (CSOs).”

“Heparin of the affected products were found on the premises of medical care in one state since the recall announcement,” said the FDA.

In the meantime, Chinese officials are denying that the oversulfated chondroitin sulfate pollution is to blame for death and Baxter has been accused of obstructing his own investigation, according to a Reuters report of a press conference given last Tuesday by Jin Shaohong, the China National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products.

They said that adverse reactions and deaths have been reported only in the U.S. and Germany and other countries have also found the contaminant in their products heparin have not reported any reaction.

The Chinese health authorities argue that adverse reactions have also been linked to the lots that did not contain the contaminant, based on their own tests. Earlier this month the FDA refused this is the case, because other laboratories and has also tested these lots and found the pollutant.

The contaminant has the same proportions of chemical elements as heparin, and very sophisticated equipment using MRI is obliged to tell the real difference between the heparin (which is made from pig intestines and costly source in China since an outbreak of pig disease) and the pollutant (which is actually much cheaper animal cartilage).

The Chinese authorities have accused Baxter of the destruction of the samples and records that they considered key for its investigation, but according to Reuters, this was denied by a spokesman for Baxter based in China.