The Cork City Coroner has said doctors need to review the use of cholesterol lowering drugs during the treatment of acute severe illnesses given the risk of serious toxicity.
Dr Myra Cullinane said those prescribing medicines need to be reminded of the potential risks, however rare, from the interaction of statins and fusidic acid.
She made her comments following the inquest today into the death of 80-year-old Kenneth Beazley of Ballybrassil, Cobh in Co Cork who died in hospital in January.
A verdict of death by medical misadventure was returned by the court after it was found that Mr Beazley had died from the interaction of fusidic acid and statins, on a background of chronic diseases.
Dr Cullinane said she first raised concerns about this in 2008, and will be writing again to the Irish Medicines Board, now the Health Products Regulatory Authority, and to the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association.
Mr Beazley's GP, Dr Peter Morehan, told the inquest that his patient had a complex medical history.
In December 2014, following a telephone consultation with orthopaedic surgeon Mr Richard Creedon about a swelling around Mr Beazley's right knee, it was decided to prescribe a second antibiotic - Fucidin - to Mr Beazley, who was also taking a statin.
Dr Morehan he had no reservations about prescribing the Fucidin.
He said in his 35 years as a GP he had never heard of the potentially fatal interaction between the two drugs.
Mr Creedon said he prescribes Fucidin regularly to treat infection in children, adults and older people, because of its effectiveness on bone infections, and he has never come across a problem.
He said he was not aware there was a problem.
Mr Beazley was admitted to the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork in early January where he was diagnosed as showing the classic symptoms of Rhabdomyolysis (a potentially fatal muscle wasting disease) caused by a combination of fusidic acid and a statin.
He died ten days later.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster told the inquest that while Mr Beazley had a complex medical history, he died of cardiac arrest, and acute renal failure due to Rhabdomyolysis caused by a combination of fusidic acid and a statin.
Dr Bolster said that although rare, it has been established that there is a cause and effect in certain cases.
She said national guidelines were published in the UK in 2012 recommending doctors to avoid a combination of the two.
She recalled that Dr Cullinane had called for the practice to be reviewed in 2008 due to the risk of severe drug toxicity following the inquest into the death of another man, 58-year-old John Deveraux.
A verdict of death by medical misadventure was recorded by the court.
The coroner also recommended that clinicians review the need for statin therapy during the course of acute severe illnesses given the risk of serious toxicity and that the attention of prescribers should again be drawn to the potential interaction between statins and fusidic acid.
