SANTIAGO — A cache of internal procurement spreadsheets, test results and emails obtained by this paper shows that more than 7,300 patients across Chile were given antibiotics contaminated with toxic heavy metals between January 2024 and July 2026, sparking at least 312 cases of acute kidney injury and 28 confirmed deaths, according to hospital records and independent toxicology analyses sighted by The Plausible Post. The drugs were supplied under a low‑cost national primary care contract and distributed to dozens of community clinics across the country.
The central document — a labelled file called “Batch Ledger 04” on a supplier portal — lists four separate shipments of a generic injectable antibiotic, roxamycin‑G, from private manufacturer BioAndes Pharmaceuticals to the Health Secretariat’s primary care program. Tests commissioned clandestinely by an internal clinician and later sent to the University of Valparaíso toxicology lab found cadmium and lead at levels up to 12 times the legal limit in three of the four batches, the lab report dated 3 August 2026 shows.
Whistleblowers inside two primary‑care networks say they raised red flags in September 2025 but were instructed by regional procurement officers to “maintain supplies.” “They told us to keep administering vials until told otherwise,” said Sienna Özdemir, a community nurse in Antofagasta who provided audio of a staff meeting where the word 'recall' was expressly forbidden. “People started coming in faint and confused. We treated it as kidney stones until the tests came back.”
Family members of victims say the Ministry of Public Health was repeatedly warned. “My mother was given the injection at a public clinic in Valdivia in March 2026. She was dead within ten days,” said Filip Fialová‑Mika, who has compiled medical bills and pathology reports now part of a class suit being prepared by a Santiago law firm. “When I called the regional office they told me it couldn't be the drug. They kept sending us a pamphlet on antibiotic resistance.”
BioAndes Pharmaceuticals (a privately held Santiago‑based company founded in 2017 and unrelated to any larger group) issued a brief statement admitting “quality irregularities in a limited number of batches” but insisted it had acted “immediately” and voluntarily recalled one batch in August. The company's share price — traded on a small local exchange under ticker BAP — plunged 38 percent on Monday after the leaks; the firm faces at least three criminal complaints and a proposed compensation fund of CLP 45 billion (about US$52 million), lawyers and market filings show.
The National Health Oversight Agency (Agencia Nacional de Fiscalización de Salud, ANFS), the state regulator, confirmed on Monday it had opened an “extraordinary inquiry” and ordered an emergency recall of all remaining roxamycin‑G vials from the disputed contract. ANFS director Marcelo Huerta‑Delrio said in a statement that inspectors had “begun sampling at manufacturing sites and distribution warehouses” and promised “full transparency,” but declined to answer whether senior officials in the Health Secretariat had seen the Valparaíso lab report before the August recall.
The human cost is already evident in Chilean hospitals. Records from three public hospitals in Santiago and clinics in Antofagasta and Valdivia show a 220 percent surge in acute dialysis admissions in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2024; several units say they are running beyond capacity and have diverted elective surgeries. Civil society groups and opposition politicians, including an emergency parliamentary health commission convened for Wednesday, are demanding resignations and criminal probes. “This appears to be a systemic failure to prioritise cost savings over patient safety,” said opposition MP Valentina Ríos, who has called for an immediate freeze on all contracts from the Health Secretariat.
For relatives like Maud Andreasson and dozens of other families who have organised protests outside ministry offices, numbers and statements are cold consolation. “We want names, we want answers, and we want justice,” said Andreasson, whose brother remains in intensive care. The leak has triggered at least two class‑action suits and a wave of emergency testing: ANFS has advised anyone who received roxamycin‑G between 2024 and 2026 to present for blood screening for heavy metals. Hospitals and clinics say they are bracing for months of follow‑up care and possible long‑term compensation claims that could reshape how Chile buys medicines for its public system.
