A BRITISH expat has died after being given the deadly painkiller Nolotil for a shoulder injury, it has emerged.
Mark Brooks, 42, was enjoying a game of golf near his home in Alicante when he began experiencing shoulder pain.
The next day, he went to his local health clinic on the Costa Blanca, where he received a shot of metamizole, also known as Nolotil.
Some 48 hours later the gardener, from Derbyshire, was admitted to hospital in Torrevieja with depleted white blood cells and sepsis.
The next day, he was taken into intensive care with organ failure. Two days later, he was dead.
READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Nolotil almost killed me… I’m still traumatised’
His partner, Summer Moses has been left to pick up the pieces with their four-year-old daughter, Aurora.
The pair had been planning to get married, before the tragic incident took Mark’s life in October last year.
“Summer was in complete shock. One day he was playing golf, really excited, and then the next he was dead,” anti-Nolotil campaigner Christina del Campo told the Olive Press this week.
“She’s now working two jobs just to make ends meet. It’s not just his life that’s been ruined, it’s her life and her daughter’s too. All because of a painkiller.”
The incident happened when he attended a clinic popular with expats in Ciudad Quesada on October 15.
Within hours of receiving an injection of Nolotil he developed a rash and blisters on his buttocks.
When he was taken to A&E in Torrevieja doctors found he had a low white blood cell count, alongside signs of liver and kidney failure.
His condition rapidly deteriorated and just four days after receiving the injection, he slipped into a coma.
According to death certificate records, Brooks’ cause of death on October 20 was ‘organ failure, septic shock and cellulitis.’
Now his ex-partner has reached out to the Nolotil campaign group, the Association of Drug Affected Patients (ADAF) run by del Campo.
It came after she discovered documents that revealed that Mark’s death was as the result ‘an apparent allergic reaction to metamizole’.
Anything but the first, the drug has now been linked to over 40 deaths in Spain, including many expats.
So dangerous is the drug, the Olive Press launched a campaign in WHEN to have it banned for expat patients, in particular, as many clinics continued to hand out the drug.
Spain’s most popular subscription painkiller CHECK, Nolotil is known to have adverse effects on Northern Europeans and is banned in 30 countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia and the US.
A 2018 report from the European Medicines Agency showed a ‘potential to induce agranulocytosis’ among certain populations.
A 1999 Swedish study estimated the risk at one in every 2000 prescriptions, with a 26% mortality rate.
It is believed the drug could have contributed to up to 350 cases of agranulocytosis, including 170 Britons living in Spain.
Yet incredibly, only one Spanish health authority, Catalunya, has warned against using the drug as a first-choice painkiller. It ruled there was ‘no evidence’ it was better at controlling pain than ‘safer alternatives’ like paracetamol or ibuprofen.
Incredibly, one English expat newspaper, based in Malaga, recently even published a two-page feature effectively promoting the drug.
ADAF began legal action against the Spanish Medical Agency (AEMPS) in November, claiming a 2018 government directive not to sell Nolotil to Northern Europeans is not being followed.
“We’re not looking for money or damages. We want to make them stop giving Nolotil to British people,” explained del Campo.
“I want them to revise and modify regulations and investigate cases properly. They need to act because it keeps being given without a prescription. People’s lives are at stake.”
The campaigner is also demanding new analysis of the risks of the drug and a revision of the information sheet given to medical professionals.
Boehringer Ingelheim, the company that makes Nolotil, claims all the side effects are clearly listed in its information packet.
