As well as the exact sulfation pattern of the heparin and/or the contaminants, despite the fact that NMR based methods were developed to specifically monitor the presence of oversulfated GAGs species, which exclude a great number of non-N-acetylated potential contaminants with charge properties, molecular weight and anticoagulant activities similar to heparin. Recently, the combination of circular dichroism, an UV-based spectroscopy, with multivariate analysis methods have allowed differentiation of low molecular weight heparins obtained by different methods of production, as well as naturally occurring GAGs. This showed in principle that relatively simple methods were able to differentiate between members of this class of highly complex carbohydrate. This differentiation was accomplished by virtue of the carboxylate chromophore of iduronate and glucuronate in the GAGs and the presence of N-acetyl groups, in higher levels and in slightly different environments in CS, DS, and HS. Other chromophores, such as the carboxylate groups in non-GAG polysaccharides as sodium alginate and pyruvate in sulfated galactans provided additional features to the UV-spectra. UV spectroscopy is also highly sensitive to the electronic transitions that occur within protein and aromatic impurities; an example of the latter are the signals present on the UV and 1H NMR spectra of the contaminated heparin samples, being them further identified as belonging to benzyl alcohol. Benzyl alcohol, a bacteriostatic agent found in many parental preparations, has been associated with adverse clinical events, for this reason the use of parental preparations containing such preservative agents is restricted. The effect of benzyl alcohol on vascular endothelial cells was evaluated, employing a cell viability assay and revealing that benzyl alcohol is highly toxic to VEC ; therefore, together with the fact that the latest bulletin regarding anticoagulant heparin solution states that it contains no antimicrobial agents, specific guidelines regarding the presence of this compound on heparin vials should be readdressed since. The heparin contamination crisis reinforced the idea that the purity and relative uniformity of complex mixtures such as heparin requires the use of multiple, orthogonal analytical techniques. However the adoption of the currently available techniques by heparin manufacturers will cause increased production costs and, ultimately, higher prices for the final product, therefore the search for cheaper and more versatile analytical approaches such as that presented here is of great importance Taken together, the results showed that this simple approach may be used as an additional tool to verify heparin purity and safety. Furthermore, this approach allows the establishment of a database of standard heparins against which any given sample could be cross-checked.