Drug Injury Attorney Blog

On November 15, 2011, another Levaquin lawsuit was filed in which the manufacturer of the drug, Johnson & Johnson, was accused of hiding the risks of tendon ruptures occurring in elderly patients. In fact, the lawsuit specifically accused J&J of targeting the elderly as its primary customers for the drug.

Making the elderly the drug's primary consumer base, as the lawsuit alleges, is especially problematic because studies show that Levaquin increases the risk of tendon ruptures when taken by the elderly — particularly if they are also taking corticosteroids. The claim of the plaintiff in this recent Levaquin lawsuit, Kathleen Y. Solie, was immediately referred to the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, where the current MDL is taking place. The MDL is being presided over by Judge John R. Tunheim.

Solie’s lawyer pointed out a couple of things in her complaint. For example, the fact that tendinitis is a side effect of fluoroquinolones was first brought to light in 1983, and the first lawsuit was filed in 1991. Then in 1995, the UK’s Regulatory Authority issued a warning about Levaquin that said “Elderly patients and those treated concurrently with corticosteroids were particularly at risk of tendon damage.”

By 1996, J&J changed Levaquin’s warning label after being forced to by the FDA. But Solie’s lawyer maintains that the warnings weren’t good enough since adverse event reports showed that tendon injury risks were almost three times worse for seniors. Solie’s lawyer said, rather than “warn that the risk of tendon injury was increased (tripled) in the elderly, J&J’s warning stated that the risk was possibly increased in those using corticosteroids.”

It is for this reason that Solie’s claim alleges that consumers may have been led to believe that there was no added tendon injury risk in taking Levaquin if the patients didn’t already take corticosteroids. Clearly the thousands of Levaquin lawsuits being filed show that this is simply not the case.

Brian Holm, who was convicted of vehicular homicide while under the influence in August of this year, has filed an appeal that cites his use of various prescription medications, including Effexor, as the contributing factors for his alleged drunkenness.

Holm, 52, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison, continues to state that he was not drunk during the incident that resulted in the death of 23-year-old Brian Beaver. On November 9, 2010, Holm swerved his car into the wrong lane of traffic. His car went onto the sidewalk and struck Beaver whom, along with two friends, were walking to Yellowstone National Park, where they were vacationing.

When the judge issued Holm's sentence, he allowed Holm to appeal before sending him to prison. Holm did just that and filed a motion two weeks later, asking for a new trial because he says the judge dozed off during his testimony. The judge denied that motion. In Holm's most recent motion, he brought up the judge’s alleged nap again, but he is also criticizing the time period in which his blood test was taken since that evidence was used to corroborate witness testimony about how much drugs and alcohol were in his system that night.

Holm contends that the timing of his blood test may have impacted the tests which measure of how much alcohol was in his system since he was also taking prescription medications at the time. His blood revealed that his alcohol level was 0.10 at the time, which is above the legal driving limit of 0.08. That amount may have been significant if alcohol was all that he had taken that night; however, he also took the prescription medications Ambien, Effexor and Lortab, which may have been a contributing factor to the blood alcohol test results.

Witnesses at the Montana Crime Lab even testified that the use of those drugs could have exacerbated the effects of the alcohol Holm had consumed that night. Patients are advised not to drive after taking Ambien, and Effexor is known to cause patients to suffer from aggressive/homicidal and suicidal behavior.

As a pharmaceutical liability attorney, I know that drug companies are not legally permitted to promote their drugs for any use the FDA has not approved. And of course, everyone knows or should know that drug makers may not withhold important safety information from consumers. That’s why I was interested to see a recent article in Bloomberg News, breaking the news of evidence that Bayer at least considered promoting the birth control pill Yaz for off-label use, and separately withheld evidence on safety risks. Yaz and its sister drug, Yasmin, are the subjects of numerous lawsuits after scientists turned up an increased risk of developing life-threatening blood clots, compared to older birth control pills. Bloomberg reports that one of those lawsuits turned up documents suggesting Bayer discussed promoting the drug for PMS.

One incriminating email came from a sales consultant for Bayer subsidiary Berlax Laboratories. The consultant cited a Woman’s Day article about Yaz, telling salespeople that it could be “a nice way of using Yaz for PMS treatment,” rather than just the narrower class of women diagnosed with premenstrual dysmorphic disorder. PMDD is a severe form of PMS. The consultant asked sales people to use the article to discuss with doctors the effects of Yaz on ordinary PMS. Yaz injury attorneys contend that this was an effort to promote the drug for off-label use. Another email discussed a contract with a gynecologist who appears on the Today show to talk about women’s health and writes a blog; it said she “definitely will mention the off-label benefits of our products.” The doctor later mentioned using Yasmin for PMS in at least two places.

Other emails cast doubt on a European safety study called the EURAS study. The lead author, Juergen Dinger, was the director of a health research center in Berlin, but had previously been a vice-president at Bayer acquisition Schering. In that role, he had overseen the development of Yaz and Yasmin. This association was not revealed when the study results were published, finding no increased risk of clots compared to other birth control pills. In emails uncovered by litigation, Schering official Maureen Cronin said she’d reached an agreement on EURAS results reporting with Dinger after a meeting. That message seemed to say Schering was structuring the report in ways that downplayed the blood clot risk. Dinger told Bloomberg the emails were out of context and that his relationship with Schering was not good.

Yasmin injury attorneys are seeking to have more emails unsealed as a result of these. As a dangerous drug lawyer, I am eager to see what might be in those new emails. The evidence that Bayer’s subsidiaries hid safety information is particularly important, because drug injury lawsuits frequently rely on claims that drug makers failed to warn patients about risks. And while any failure to warn is a basis for this kind of claim, knowingly covering up or minimizing evidence of safety risks is even more damaging. A jury may or may not agree that a company should have known enough to warn patients — but if the evidence shows that the company did know, it’s not hard to conclude that it should have shared the knowledge. This is especially true when the risk is potentially life-threatening, which certain kinds of blood clots are. As a defective drug attorney, I suspect these documents will provide a boost to the more than 10,000 Yaz and Yasmin lawsuits now pending.

Continue reading " Yaz Lawsuit Turns Up Evidence That Bayer Suggested Promoting It for Off-Label Uses " »

According to recent information posted in articles online, hundreds of American soldiers and vets are dying after taking a drug cocktail that combines the antipsychotic Seroquel with antidepressants like Paxil and Klonopin.

An article posted online in the May 24, 2008, Charleston Gazette, "Vets taking post traumatic stress disorder drugs die in sleep," first revealed that four veterans — Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson — died in their sleep at the beginning of 2008. Drug overdoses or suicides had not been named as the cause, even though the drugs definitely played a role in their deaths.

Another aspect of their death that stood out was that each patient had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and was taking a drug cocktail that included Seroquel, Paxil and Klonipin. All of the men had also been described as "normal" when they went to sleep. The men, known as “the Charleston Four,” have since been the subject of numerous investigations about what caused their deaths. Back in February 7, 2008, Eric B. Shoemaker, Surgeon General, made an announcement that there was "a series, a sequence of deaths" in the military suggesting this was "often a consequence of the use of multiple prescription and nonprescription medicines and alcohol."

The cause of death for the "Charleston Four" was listed as a probable sudden cardiac deaths (SCD), which is a sudden loss of pulse that causes the brain to die in a 4-5 minute time period. The condition has a survival rate of about 3-4 percent, and doesn’t necessarily give patients time to get to a hospital. The coma caused by the drug cocktail would make it nearly impossible for bystanders to notice any symptoms that would cause the kind of alarm that might alert them that the patient needed a hospital in the first place.

While Paxil, Seroquel and Klonopin are each known to cause sudden death on their own, the combination of them is clearly catastrophic. Clearly these drugs should not have been prescribed in combination when seemingly healthy men in their twenties like the "Charleston Four" have died so senselessly. Hopefully these deaths will be the wake up call that is needed to get doctors to stop prescribing drug cocktails like these.

Another study conducted on the link between Yaz birth control pills and blood clots is proving yet again that the pills cause patients to develop dangerous blood clots that can lead to other conditions.

This newest study, in which researchers analyzed data collected from 330,000 Israeli women, discovered that oral contraceptives containing the synthetic progestin drospirenone (the main medicinal ingredient in Yaz and Yasmin) were much more likely to cause patients to develop blood clots. The study found that a little bit more than six patients developed the venous blood clots for every 10,000 users every year that the study took place. That may not sound significant, but it should be noted that the risk was increased by 43 percent to 65 percent in women that took the Yaz or Yasmin when compared to those that took other birth control pills.

When you look at the risk factor alone, it shows that 8-10 women developed blood clots for every 10,000 women that took the pills each year. According to Dr. Susan Solymoss of McGill University in Montreal, "it's important to remember that all oral contraceptives are associated with a risk of blood clots."

Solymoss also suggests that women that want to take birth control talk to their doctors so that they can talk about the real benefits-to-risk ratio involved. Yaz and Yasmin have long been known to cause severe adverse side effects like blood clots that can lead to pulmonary embolisms. Despite all of the studies that show how dangerous the pills are, Bayer continues to defend the pills by claiming that they are no more dangerous than any other birth control pill. But all of the studies can’t be wrong, and many doctors and patients alike are hoping that Yaz and Yasmin, as well as other drosperinone-based birth control pills, are recalled. This newest study is just adding more fuel to the fire of accusations against the dangers of Yaz, and it certainly can't hurt the credibility of Yaz lawsuit plaintiffs.

Complaints filed by Pearcia and Eric LaPointe represent the most recent Yaz lawsuit centering around blood clots. The LaPointes are a married couple whose lawsuit was removed from a California state court on October 26 of this year. The case instead was sent to the federal U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California in Sacramento.

This move is the beginning of having the couple’s case joined with various other cases that focus on deep vein thrombosis caused by Yaz. The case that the LaPointe’s complaint will be joined to is a Yaz multidistrict litigation (MDL) that is taking place in Illinois. The LaPointes originally filed their lawsuit on July 19, 2011, in California’s Superior Court.

Pearcia LaPointe first started taking Yaz back in 2005 and took the medication until 2009. When she was two months pregnant, Pearcia developed blood clots and deep vein thrombosis. Pearcia’s complaints state that Yaz is directly responsible for her baby’s birth defects. Pearcia gave birth to a daughter, Arden LaPointe, on January 6, 2010 with “severe birth defects.” Peacria also suffered from what she calls “grievous and serious injuries” and “great pain and suffering” brought on by her deep vein thrombosis.

Both of the LaPointes believe that the birth control pill was “negligently and carelessly tested” and “not properly developed, inspected, processed, or labeled.” The LaPointes do not mince words when they say that Yaz is a “defective and dangerous product” that is “unsafe and unsuitable for use.” There are thousands of lawsuits just like the LaPointes' that all claim the same thing. In fact, various research studies found that Yaz causes dangerous blood clots and deep vein thrombosis in women taking the pills. A very recent study conducted by researchers analyzing data of Israeli women confirms the previous Yaz blood clot dangers. Bellwether trials are due to begin in January 2012.

Most of my cases as a pharmaceutical liability attorney focus on a drug manufacturer’s failure to warn patients about a serious safety risk of its product. Unfortunately, there have been multiple cases where the pharmaceutical company not only failed to warn the public, but took active steps to cover up negative information or suppress scientific studies. This can form the basis of a failure to warn lawsuit filed by individuals or classes of individuals. In Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds v. Amgen et al., it was also the basis for a securities lawsuit alleging that a retirement investor was misled by public statements made by Amgen Inc. and four of its officers about the anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals joined two sister circuits in making its ruling.

In its lawsuit, CRPTF alleged that Amgen violated several provisions of the Securities Exchange Act with four public statements. It accused Amgen of downplaying the FDA’s safety concerns about its anemia products; concealing details about a clinical trial canceled because the product appeared to exacerbate tumor growth; exaggerating the safety of on-label uses; and lying about its practice of promoting off-label uses, which is illegal. These misstatements inflated the price of Amgen’s stock, CRPTF said, causing the retirement plan to lose money when the truth emerged and the stock price fell. CRPTF successfully moved to certify a class in district court, but Amgen filed an interlocutory appeal of that certification. It challenged the district court’s determination that plaintiffs need not show at the class certification stage that misrepresentations are material.

The Ninth Circuit started by dispensing with CRPTF’s motion to dismiss the appeal in light of three Ninth Circuit decisions. The court denied this motion, finding that none of the three applied closely enough to moot the issues. It then turned to Amgen’s contention that CRPTF failed to meet standards for class certification because it did not prove that the allegedly false statements by Amgen were material. This is putting the cart before the horse, the Ninth said, because materiality is an element of the merits of a securities fraud claim. Thus, it doesn’t affect class certification; a claim that cannot demonstrate materiality would be void as an individual or class action. Thus, it’s best addressed at trial or in summary judgment motions, the court said. In its holding, the Ninth joined the Seventh Circuit, which made the same ruling in 2010’s Schleicher v. Wendt, and the Third Circuit in 2011’s In re DVI Sec. Litig. This splits the three courts with three other circuits, the Ninth noted — but it agreed with the Seventh that this was based on a misreading. With similar reasoning, the Ninth rejected Amgen’s argument that it should be able to rebut the legal presumption of fraud on the market, because this is another way of debating materiality.

As a defective prescription drug lawyer, I’m pleased to see CRPTF will have a chance to prove its claim that Amgen made false public statements to protect its stock price. This is just the securities-law version of the same kind of misrepresentations made to customers, to protect sales of prescription drugs. Because prescription drugs generate millions or even billions in profits, drug companies often take steps to cover up safety information that might affect their profits. Sometimes that safety information is absolutely vital to patients — such as information that Aranesp and Epogen could exacerbate cases of cancer. As a dangerous medication attorney, I help clients hurt by this kind of deception hold drug companies legally and financially liable for their injuries.

Continue reading " Ninth Circuit Finds Amgen Made False Material Statements About Anemia Drugs – Connecticut Retirement Plans v. Amgen " »

Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of controversial medications like Paxil and Avandia, has agreed to a settlement over some longstanding disputes about the way the company develops and markets its drugs. The amount the company agreed to pay is $3 billion.

The $3 billion settlement is to go toward the civil and criminal claims that are expected to be finalized in 2012. These claims include an investigation that is being conducted by the Department of Justice, which is looking into the diabetes drug Avandia's association with heart complications. This deal was made after the regulatory clampdown in the United States that was designed to prevent pharmaceutical companies from “bad business” practices such as misleading advertising and poor manufacturing.

When the company announced the settlement outline, Glaxo officials said that it had started making many changes in its selling practices over the past few years in the United States. Glaxo CEO Andrew Witty said that the previously-filed cases "do not reflect the company that we are today."

The other disputes that were a part of the settlement include an investigation that began back in Colorado and was moved to Massachusetts. That case dealt with issues involving Glaxo’s marketing procedures of drugs between the years of 1997 and 2004. Another one of probes revolves around claims that Glaxo “used the Medicaid system improperly to make additional profit from sales to the federal program."

Then, of course, there are the claims made against Glaxo back in 2010 that cost the company $2.4 billion in settlement money after a whistleblower charged the company with bad manufacturing processes at their former factory in Cidra, Puerto Rico, involving both Avandia and Paxil. At the time, Glaxo was accused of selling adulterated drugs and packaging problems. There have been thousands of lawsuits against Glaxo in recent years over Paxil and Avandia that just continue to pile up. This latest settlement won't likely be the last.

The bellwether trial dates have been a major source of concern for the thousands of plaintiffs awaiting possible settlements in their Yaz lawsuits. In May, judges and lawyers met to discuss the trial schedules for the thousands of Yaz lawsuits; this resulted in a January 12, 2012, date for the first of the Yaz bellwether trials, which will be presided over by judge David R. Herndon.

The January Yaz trial will focus on the claims of patients who allege they developed pulmonary embolisms after taking Yaz. The other bellwether trial dates have been scheduled, as well. Those cases will focus on gallbladder disease and deep vein thrombosis. The gallbladder case will begin in April and the DVT case will begin in June. These first cases are expected to have a major impact on future Yaz lawsuits.

Women have been suffering from various life-threatening conditions after taking Yaz and Yasmin, including heart attacks, strokes, gallbladder disease, DVT, pulmonary embolisms and much more. Most recently, blood clots caused by Yaz have been getting a lot of negative press. In fact, the FDA has conducted its own review of Yaz blood clots and have concluded that Yaz patients are more than 75 percent more likely to develop blood clots than patients not taking Yaz.

In a bellwether trial, a group of plaintiffs' cases are tried as a means of representing the whole group of similar cases. Should the first Yaz bellwether trials be successful for the plaintiffs, the group of plaintiffs can likely expect a good settlement. Of course, that will all be dependent on the first plaintiffs’ cases, which are chosen as they are generally the best case scenario as a representative for the other cases. The bellwether trials will be closely monitored by all future Yaz plaintiffs and their lawyers who will benefit from learning the hits and misses of the first trials. Still, with all of the proof of real Yaz dangers (even from the FDA reviews), settlement negotiations are likely just around the corner.

With the constant barrage of side effects linked to various antidepressant medications, it can be daunting to try to find one that is deemed safe. SSRIs like Paxil and Effexor have long been proven to be dangerous, so the question remains — are any antidepressant medications safe?

Research has shown that SSRI medications like Paxil and Effexor have the potential to be fatal for some users. Those drugs are linked with a variety of adverse side effects including aggressive behavior and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The drugs have also been linked to birth defect in babies whose mothers take the drugs while pregnant. SSRIs like Paxil and Effexor have also caused such aggressive behaviors that patients taking the drugs have been known to commit homicides. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the drugs are highly addictive. Most patients that try to come off of the drugs experience severe withdrawal symptoms.

The other type of antidepressant are Tricyclics, which are still used for severe depression (such as doxepin and amoxapene), but they also have side effects which include confusion and seizures. Finally, there is Noradrenaline Reuptake Inhibitors (NARI) such as Reboxetine; however, it’s not currently available in the United States. NARI medications work similarly to SSRIs but boast fewer adverse side effects.

Tricyclics seem to be the safer alternative to SSRIs, but not by much. The fact is that there isn’t any certain way to assume that antidepressants are useful at all, since research is starting to show that these medications may not work any better than talk therapy and exercise. In fact, many doctors are starting to prescribe lifestyle changes over medications as a means of safely treating depression. The reason for this is because is there is even research that has proven that antidepressants don’t work any better than placebos at treating depression.

Still, antidepressant medication prescriptions are up 400 percent according to the newest research. That just doesn’t add up when you consider the risk-to-benefit ratio. Until people realize that they don't need pills to cure all of their symptoms, prescriptions will likely continue to rise.

The now-recalled painkiller Vioxx is one of the most notorious dangerous drugs from recent years. The drug had to be taken off the market after studies showed it increased users’ risk of heart attacks, and many of those users have filed lawsuits against Merck, the drug’s manufacturer, seeking compensation for their serious injuries or the wrongful death of a loved one. So I was interested, as a defective drug attorney, to see a court ruling out of Arkansas about how the proceeds of such a lawsuit might be split in an unusual family situation. In Bridges v. Shields, Curtis Bridges claimed a portion of the proceeds of a lawsuit filed by his deceased wife’s children on behalf of a previous stepfather who died after taking Vioxx. The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that Bridges had no claim because the wife, Hazel Mae Frazier, had no claim.

Frazier had been married three times and had seven children. Her second husband, Elree Frazier, died in 2001 after taking Vioxx, leaving only her and her seven children, Elree Frazier’s stepchildren. Frazier eventually married Curtis Bridges, but died herself in 2007. After her death, one of her children, Glen Shields, filed a wrongful death claim against Merck on behalf of the estate of Elree Frazier and eventually settled for a bit under 124,000. The money was funneled into the estate of Hazel Mae Frazier for distribution to her seven children; it was the only asset. Shields successfully petitioned to be made administrator of his mother’s estate as well. Bridges then filed a claim in trial court for one-third of the money in the estate, based on his interest as her husband (curtesy interest), which Shields opposed. After much analysis, the court found for Shields, ruling that Bridges had no curtesy interest in the money because Frazier’s estate was only a conduit.

The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed. Because Frazier was not alive when the Merck lawsuit took place, she clearly did not possess the proceeds at the time of her death. Thus, the important question was whether Frazier’s right to sue Merck was a property right that became part of the estate. Under state law, the trial court found, Frazier had a chose in action — a property right to sue — when she died, but was not possessed of the proceeds of the Merck lawsuit. The high court disagreed, finding that Frazier did not have a chose in action. Arkansas law requires that a wrongful death action be brought by the administrator of the deceased’s estate — in the case of Elree Frazier, this was Glen Shields — or by all heirs together. Thus, Frazier had no individual right to bring an action, and thus no chose in action. Thus, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s ruling denying Bridges any part of the Merck settlement.

As a dangerous drug lawyer, I urge other families that have lost someone to a Vioxx injury to move quickly to enforce their rights. Every state has a law called the statute of limitations, which is a deadline after which you may sue. It’s generally two to five years except under special circumstances — and drug companies will make every argument they can think of to convince a court that no exceptions should apply. Thus, the quicker you file your suit, the better your chances of recovering fair compensation. This was not an issue in this case, because the dispute was over the disposition of the settlement proceeds. But as a pharmaceutical liability attorney, I’ve seen courts turn down otherwise meritorious cases that are past the state of limitations, and I’d rather that injured people get their day in court.

Continue reading " Arkansas Supreme Court Holds Husband Not Entitled to Proceeds of Stepchildren’s Vioxx Lawsuit – Bridges v. Shields " »

It is no secret that antidepressant use has gone up in recent years. Now new research is suggesting that the poor economy may be to blame for it. Concurrent with countless people being laid off and losing their homes, there has been a significant increase in the use of antidepressant medications like Paxil and Effexor.

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, use of antidepressants like Paxil and Effexor has increased by 400 percent. This use is especially common in women. The information that this report was based on was collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). This survey collected information from as many as 12,637 people. During the survey, people were asked a variety of questions pertaining to their prescription drug use, including whether they use antidepressants and, if so, for how long they've used them and what the extent of their depression symptoms has been.

Drugs like Paxil and Effexor have become the most commonly used medication for adults between the ages of 18 and 44. Information collected also shows that “nearly one in four women between 40 and 59 are taking the medications, as are one in 25 teens.” Of course, it makes sense that financial problems would contribute to an increase in depression symptoms for most people, and a new study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania shows that homeowners who are now facing defaults and foreclosures are suffering from more mental health concerns than those people who have low or no troubles with their houses.

This significant increase in depressed people taking prescription medications like Paxil and Effexor is dangerous since these drugs have often been linked to aggressive behavior (that can lead to homicides) as well as suicidal thoughts and behavior. This seems to make the prescribing of antidepressant meds like Paxil sound extreme when feeling depressed after suffering from financial problems is expected. While antidepressant medications may provide a temporary solution to the "temporary" sadness, it's not worth dying over.

A new Levaquin lawsuit has been filed. While this is not significant in and of itself as it is one of scores of similar suits, one thing does stand out about this case: Johnson & Johnson will not be the defendant. Instead, the plaintiff has listed Ortho-McNeil as the defendant.

Most of the time, J&J is named in Levaquin lawsuits. But this time, it is the company’s subsidiary that will be in the hot seat. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen is a subsidiary of J&J, and (what most people don’t know) is the actual manufacturer of the controversial antibiotic Levaquin. Legally, this means that Ortho can be held just as liable in Levaquin lawsuits as J&J. In fact, when you go to the actual Levaquin website, it is not the J&J logo that you see, but the Janssen logo. The reason for this is because Levaquin is a product of Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

This is significant because Janssen is also the company that had to pay plaintiff John Schedin $1.7 million in damages when he won his lawsuit back in December of last year. Schedin’s case was the first Levaquin case to go to trial and win a settlement. Two other cases have been tried but the defendants (J&J) won the verdicts in those cases.

In this most recent case, Arthur and Patricia Ilardi had originally filed a lawsuit back in December of last year in the Supreme Court of New York. The case is built around the suffering of Mr. IIardi, who says he has serious and permanent injuries after taking Levaquin for only a couple of weeks. His wife claims that because of her husband’s injuries, she “suffered a loss of services, companionship, society and consortium.”

Originally, the Ilardis' lawsuit also named his doctor as a defendant, but on September 14, the couple decided to remove their action against Mai Liu, M.D. and Nassau-Queens Pulmonary Associates. This new tactic in naming Ortho-McNeil as a defendant should prove interesting, and this case is definitely one to watch as it may give future plaintiffs a new way to win their Levaquin lawsuits.

Now that the FDA has decided to set up a special conference on December 8 as a means of investigating the very real instances of blood clots and other health risks associated with Yaz, some people are questioning the sudden urgency behind this decision.

While Yaz and Yasmin, both drosperinone-based, have been linked to countless adverse side effects for years now, the FDA’s sudden need to hold a conference to discuss the matter seems strange. Blood clots have long been linked to drosperinone and Yaz and so have the increased risk of patients suffering from heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary embolisms as a result of those blood clots. However, constant adverse events reports to the FDA and thousands of lawsuits seem to finally have gotten the regulators’ attention only recently.

Perhaps the fact that there are new Yaz lawsuits being filed daily that are starting to list even more dangerous side effects of the controversial oral contraceptives is what swayed regulators. Most recently, one of those plaintiffs was a 28-year-old woman named Carissa Ubersox, who claims that Yaz didn’t just cause her to suffer from multiple pulmonary embolisms — it also put her in a coma and left her blind.

Blindness like Carissa’s is a lesser-known condition blamed on Yaz. The woman was a pediatric nurse who was engaged to be married back in 2007. She started taking Yaz when she saw an ad on TV that basically touted the pill as a cure for everything from acne to severe PMS. Within three months of taking Yaz, she suffered from a blood clot in her legs that eventually made its way to her lungs, causing her to suffer from a double pulmonary embolism. The pulmonary embolisms caused the woman’s heart to stop beating and she was put into a coma. By the time Carissa came to, she was totally blind.

Due to the same ads that Carissa believed, thousands of women began taking Yaz and wound up much like Carissa did. Bayer, the makers of Yaz and its sister drug Yasmin, has continued to stand by the efficacy and safety of the drugs, claiming that the company's own studies show that Yaz is no more dangerous than other birth control pills that don’t contain drosperinone. The ads of the "miracle pill" have since been corrected to highlight the real dangers linked to the pills.

As a pharmaceutical liability attorney, I frequently tell clients and potential clients to act quickly on their cases. This is not just an advertising ploy — delaying your case too long can have serious consequences. Most vitally, a delay can cause you to miss a legal deadline called the statute of limitations. If you wait until after this deadline, you are legally barred from suing, no matter how much merit your case might have. That lesson was learned in two states in Rick et al. v. Wyeth, a recent decision of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jeanette Rick and other women sued the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, alleging that they developed breast cancer after taking its hormone-replacement drugs. Their case was dismissed as time-barred in New York, so they brought it as a federal case in Minnesota. The Eighth Circuit ultimately found that it must respect New York state law even in the federal action.

The New York state cases were filed in 2004 and 2005, asserting that hormone replacement drugs from Wyeth and other companies caused the plaintiffs’ breast cancer. After lengthy discovery, the drug companies moved for summary judgment on the basis of the statute of limitations, which is three years in New York. While this was pending, the plaintiffs filed another set of claims in Minnesota federal court, where the statute of limitations is six years. They moved to dismiss the New York cases without prejudice, but the New York court instead granted summary judgment to the drug companies, finding the cases “clearly time-barred.” The Minnesota cases were also dismissed for statute of limitations reasons. The Minnesota court found that the New York cases had been litigated enough to preclude trying the same case in other jurisdictions.

The plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the Minnesota federal court should give the New York state-court decision no weight. The Eighth Circuit disagreed. The issue was whether the state-court judgment precluded litigation of the same claims in federal court, the Eighth said, which reached issues of res judicata and the Constitution’s call for courts to give one another full faith and credit. Under a 1984 Supreme Court ruling, issues in federal court may be precluded by state-court rulings if the issue would be precluded in another court in the same state as the original ruling. Thus, the Eighth must apply New York law, it said. Fortunately, New York caselaw addresses the issue extensively, it said; and that caselaw bars New York courts from retrying claims that previously were extinguished by summary judgment. Thus, the Minnesota court was bound to do likewise, the Eighth concluded. It upheld the district court.

As a dangerous drug lawyer, I think this is a good example of the importance of statutes of limitations. This case died entirely because of concerns about the deadline. Whether the plaintiffs had a good case was not even discussed, much less tested and decided. This happens often in multi-plaintiff or class-action drug liability cases like this, because shutting it down early is more advantageous for the drug company. By stopping the case before the plaintiffs can present it to a jury, the companies substantially reduce the risk of losing and entirely eliminate the chance of a public airing of the allegations against them. To make sure you have access to justice, it’s vitally important to get in touch with a defective drug attorney as soon as you realize you’re interested in pursuing a legal case.

Continue reading " Eighth Circuit Dismisses Hormone Replacement Therapy Cases as Time Barred in New York – Rick et al. v. Wyeth " »

The current consensus is that Americans are being prescribed far too much medication — especially SSRI antidepressants like Paxil and Effexor. According to a recent survey, half of the psychiatrists surveyed said that they prescribe antidepressants to patients after less than three minutes into a session.

Nowadays, there is a drug being pushed for almost every ailment that a person can think of. Recent studies have shown that antidepressants are the second-most-prescribed medication in America. In fact, doctors at Johns Hopkins University have published the results of a study that showed that almost “three-quarters of all antidepressant prescriptions are signed by doctors without patients even having a specific diagnosis.” This means that many antidepressants prescribed (like Paxil and Effexor) are given before the patient has even been diagnosed with depression. As if that wasn’t bad enough, most of the prescriptions are being handed out by medical doctors instead of psychiatrists.

Current information also shows that pharmaceutical companies regularly pay private clinics, organizations and universities that do their drug research for them (which often downplay their risks), as well as paying the clinics and hospital money to prescribe their drugs over other similar drugs. Since the drug manufacturers are solely responsible for conducting drug trials in order to gain FDA approval, many drugs hit the market before the FDA can fully understand the efficacy and safety of the drugs and the regulators are forced to rely on consumer complaints and reports of drug side effects being reported through the MedWatch program as a means of catching the dangers.

What this means is that the FDA basically just relies on companies to report adverse effects on their own, which is how dangerous medications like Paxil and Effexor get on the market at all. By the time the FDA gets enough complaints from patients about injuries and illnesses from taking the drugs, it is too late. This is why there are so many drug injury lawsuits making their way though the courts. All this shows is that pharmaceuticals, though helpful, are also dangerous and because of that, doctors should be more cautious when prescribing medications and patients should try to be more aware of the side effects of every medication they take.

With all of the adverse side effects that have been linked to antidepressant medications like Paxil and Effexor, a relatively new one is getting attention lately. It seems that an often overlooked side effect of some prescription medications is nightmares.

According to what some psychiatrists are saying, there are a large array of drugs that can cause nightmares. Along with other types of medications, SSRI antidepressants medications like Paxil and Effexor made the list of “nightmare drugs.” Some of these medications cause nightmares in the earliest stages of being taken, while others seem to cause the nightmares when a patient stops taking them. According to New York psychiatrist Andrea San Martin, this is a very common complaint among patients.

"You put a patient on an antidepressant and routinely, they'll say, 'You know, I'm feeling better, but I'm having very vivid dreams,'" Martin notes. "The emotion and passion can be quite overwhelming."

While the reason behind this happening isn’t completely understood by experts yet, some sleep experts think drugs cause nightmares because they get in the way of the patient’s sleep stages such as properly switching from light sleep to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep; this is supposed to occur at least three or four times a night. The REM (deep sleep) stage is where the vivid dreams take place and generally start to last longer as you get closer to the morning. However, some medications like Paxil and Effexor decrease REM sleep patterns or cause some patients to experience even longer vivid dreams.

It is those broken sleep patterns that can cause the nightmares in the first place and antidepressant drugs are more likely to bring them on because of how they affect the brain’s neurotransmitters.

"Whenever REM sleep is altered, that leads to nightmares," says Naresh Dewan, a professor of sleep medicine at Creighton University, and co-author of a review of drug-induced sleep disturbances in the journal Consultant Pharmacist.