Medical Class Action Lawsuits

What is Paxil?

Paxil is an SSRI antidepressant, which is a type of drug that has been associated with increased risk of birth defects in babies whose mothers took Paxil during pregnancy.  Along with Zoloft and Prozac, Paxil is now the target of multiple lawsuits.

What is the Basis for a Paxil Lawsuit?

Patients who were prescribed Paxil during pregnancy and who were not warned of the severe and life-threatening birth defects made more possible by the drug can get a free case evaluation.  The law says that if there are side effects and especially serious side effects that include birth defects, the doctor, pharmaceutical company, or drug maker must warn the patient of the risks.  If people do not know the risks, they cannot make important decisions about their treatment.

There was no warning on Paxil labels and doctors did not warn patients about birth defects born to babies of a Paxil pregnancy.  A black box warning was put onto Paxil in 2004, but this was after twelve years of people taking the drug without warning.

Is there a Paxil Class Action Lawsuit?

GlaxoSmithKline is the maker of Paxil and yes, already faces several Paxil class action lawsuits.  There is one Paxil class action over the sale of Paxil to children under 18.

How About Paxil Settlements?

Yes, there was a Paxil settlement in 2008 and another one in 2010.  The former was over the drug being prescribed to children and the latter was over Paxil birth defects.

Zoloft

Zoloft is an antidepressant that has been found to be linked to increased risk of birth defects if taken while pregnant.  Women and men have been taking this SSRI type drug since 1991, when it was first approved by the FDA.  There were no warnings on the label until 2006 and 2007, when all SSRIs got birth defect warnings and Zoloft got a black box warning regarding increased risk of suicidal behavior.  Until the black box warning came out in 2007, Zoloft was the number one prescription drug on the market for depression.

Zoloft is the brand name for Sertraline hydrochloride, which was developed by Pfizer to treat not only depression but also OCD, post traumatic stress disorder, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder and several anxiety disorders.  The patent expired in 2006 and is now available in generic form.

Zoloft Lawsuit

A Zoloft lawsuit is based on the terrible fact that many women took the drug while pregnant without knowing of the risks involved.  Babies born with birth defects to these women are the tragic consequence, and women are seeking compensation for injuries and coverage for expenses.

What is Prozac?

Prozac is an antidepressant but is also used to treat bulimia nervosa, panic disorder and OCD as well as depression and anxiety.  The class of drug is called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Ihibitor, or SSRI for short.  More and more research is published each year linking SSRI drugs to birth defects in babies born to mothers taking SSRIs.

Prozac is manufactured by Eli Lilly and Co. and has been on the market since the late 1980s.

What are the Prozac Side Effects?

Prozac and other SSRI drugs can increase the likelihood of PPHN (persistent pulmonary hypertension) in newborns.  The FDA issued a warning to pregnant women taking Prozac.  PPHN prevents the baby from getting enough oxygen throughout the body because of abnormal blood flow in the heart and lungs.  This causes serious sickness and sometimes death.

What is a Prozac Lawsuit?

The side effect involved in any recent Prozac lawsuit is mainly the serious birth defects suffered by babies born to women taking Prozac.  There are also some Prozac lawsuits involving increased suicidal behavior in children and young adults.

Lots of drugs have side effects, but if the doctor, drug maker or pharmacy did not warn patients about the side effects, there is grounds for legal action.  A Prozac lawsuit is based on the presence of knowledge about the risks of Prozac without any type of warning given to patients.

Taking Actos for more than one year can increase your risk of developing bladder cancer.  If you have Type 2 Diabetes, have been taking Actos and have any of the symptoms listed below, your should know about your legal rights and find out about an Actos lawsuit immediately.

That’s because Actos has been found to be linked to bladder cancer, heart problems, and bone fractures.  Especially in women, bone fractures in the upper arm, foot or hand can possibly be linked to taking Actos.

For people with Type 2 Diabetes looking to control their blood sugar levels with Actos, the risks should be understood beforehand.  These include:

1. heart attack
2. heart failure
3. heart disease
4. kidney damage
5. liver damage
6. bone fractures
7. bladder cancer

An Actos lawyer can help you sort out the details of your case should you decide to get involved with an  Actos lawsuit or class action.  Your medical history as well as history of taking Actos will be considered in your case evaluation.  Whatever the case may be, it’s important to find out about your legal rights if you have suffered Actos side effects.  An Actos attorney can help you with this information, even if you decide not to become part of a lawsuit.

All some people wanted was relief from acne but now they could have inflammatory bowel disease.  That’s what the Accutane class action is about.  At this stage Accutane lawyers are collecting information on people to took Accutane and got IBD.

Thousands of lawsuits in the courts right now are being weighed and may become an Accutane class action lawsuit, meaning the maker of Accutane will have to pay settlements to thousands of people harmed by their product.

Accutane was first introduced in the 1980s but discontinued in 2009 after the manufacturer, Roche, couldn’t afford to defend itself against existing lawsuits and also the possibility of any future Accutane class action.

There are over 5,000 personal injury claims right now, pending against Roche, making the field ripe for an Accutane class action.

Povidone iodine swabs have been recalled after an FDA safety alert due to possible contamination.  This is not the first recall of the Povidone iodine swabs, manufactured by H&P Industries.  The company has no checks in place to check for microbial contamination, according to the safety alert, issued by the FDA this week.

H&P Industries is a sister company to Triad Group, which has been the target of a class action lawsuit over tainted alcohol wipes.  It looks like the start of a similar scenario, leading to a Povidone iodine swabs class action lawsuit.

The tainted wipes lawsuit filed earlier this year is now part of an ongoing review by the FDA.  This week another death was announced and it’s part of the FDA review as well.  A 66-year old man died after using home testing supplies including alcohol prep pads manufactured by Triad.

The FDA has received 11 reports of non-fatal infections linked to Triad alcohol prep wipes.

Triad Group and H&P Industries, of Hartland, Wisconsin, make and distribute the alcohol wipes which are the center of attention in this tainted wipes lawsuit and the FDA investigation.

This week’s death brings to eight the number of reported deaths possibly linked to Triad medical products.  Triad and H&P Industries continue to claim that no deaths or even any injuries can be linked to their products.

Aidapak Services repackages drugs from other companies and sells them in kits to hospital pharmacies and healthcare professionals.  The facility where the repackaged drugs are handles is supposed to be sterile.  There is currently a repackaged pharmaceuticals recall of Aidapak Services products because the kits may have been cross-contaminated with other drugs.

The cross-contamination would have occurred at the plant, when some non-penicillin drug products were being repackaged  in the same facility, possibly at the same time.  People who are sensitive to beta-lactam or penicillin products may be at risk of anaphylactic reactions if using the products involved that were tainted in the repackaged pharmaceutical recall.

Earlier this year a Zimmer knee recall was requested by the very same surgeon who had promoted the artificial joints for years.  A prominent doctor from Chicago who had enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Zimmer by promoting their artificial knee replacements and even training other doctors on how to implant the medical devices, called for the Zimmer knee replacement recall this past January, 2011.

He even performed a study with another Chicago surgeon and found that the Nexgen knee replacement failed in 9 out of 108 patients.  The artificial joint was not joining with the thigh bone even after two years, and causing patients pain.  Zimmer contents that the study represents only a few of the millions of Nexgen knee replacements performed since 1994.  They also counted the Chicago doctors’ claims by stating that the failure of the artificial knees are due to just one component of the Nexgen system called the CR-Flex Porous Femoral Component, not all parts.

Regardless of which study is cited, a Zimmer knee recall is not good for the maker of medical devices, mostly artificial joints.  Over $100 million has been set aside by the company in the past four years, pending various Zimmer class action lawsuits over their products.  Most recently the Zimmer ASR hip implant recall and subsequent lawsuit has made the news.

Last month the FDA issued a warning and then strengthened its warning against prescribing Topamax to pregnant women.  The Topamax birth defects warning informs doctors that there is now an association between use of the epilepsy drug during pregnancy and serious birth defects.  The warnings come almost three years after a study suggested a link between use of the drug during pregnancy and Topamax birth defects.

The study, which was published in July 2008 in a medical journal called Neurology, showed a strong relationship between taking Topamax and giving birth to babies with serious birth defects.  The study was performed on about 200 pregnant women in Ireland who took Topamax while they were pregnant.  All the women had epilepsy.  All the women also took Topamax alone or the generic form, Topiramate alone, or a combination of Topamax and another epilepsy drug.

178 babies were born, and 16 of those babies had serious birth defects.  Three of the 16 mothers of babies with Topamax birth defects were taking Topamax alone.  The other 13 were taking Topamax plus another epilepsy drug.  Four of the babies were born with cleft lip or palate, which is 11 times more the normal rate.  Four of the males were born with genital birth defects, which is a 14 times higher than the general population’s rate of this type of birth defect.

The study on Topamax birth defects raises concern about Topamax side effects in general, in both women and men.  Topamax and Topiramate are both prescribed widely for migraines.