Articles Posted in Defective Products

Heart attack due to Avandia? The latest news about Avandia: several FDA reviewers are now publicly stating that they believe Avandia should be pulled from stores due to “serious” risk of cardiovascular failure the diabetes drug causes.

On July 13 and 14 a group of experts in medicine will recommend whether Avandia should be pulled from the market altogether. While the FDA does not have to follow these recommendations of advising committees, it usually does. And, it will be the second time a panel to advise was assigned the job to guide the FDA on what to decide about Avandia. In 2007, experts ruled that Avandia increased congestive heart failure, cardiovascular risk, but stated the benefits outweighed the risks. FDA reviewers condemned the rationale in the decision stating no benefits were ever clarified.

Further more, FDA reviewers criticize the drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline of manipulating data, and reported their “extreme mishandling of events” claiming their trial was “unethical and exploitative,”

A spokesperson for the drug company GlaxoSmithKline said the company stands behind the safety and efficacy of Avandia.

The important thing to know about the law is that if a person is injured due to a drug, the drug manufacturer could still be liable despite having been approved for use with the FDA. This is thanks in part to the 2008 United States Supreme Court groundbreaking case, Wyeth v. Levine, and held that Federal regulatory approval of a medication does not shield the manufacturer from liability under state law. Wyeth v. Levine 129 S. Ct. 1187 (2008).

Under Georgia State law, a drug manufacture like GlaxoSmithKline may be liable reasonably foreseeable dangers in the use of the drug Avandia.
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Patients prescribed Reglan or its generic version, Metoclopramide can develop a serious condition known as Tardive Dyskinesia. Reglan is often prescribed for acid reflux disease, for pregant women with morning sickness, for those who become nauseous with migraines, and for breastfeeding mothers and children.

The FDA has issued an alert warning against chronic use of this type of drug and issued a boxed warning. The side effects of tardive dyskinesia are characterized by generally irreversible symptoms that include random movements in the mouth and face, arms, legs, fingers and toes along with swaying body movements.

In order to determine if you have a case against a drug manufacturer due to the use of Reglan or Metoclopramide, you need to have met the following three conditions:

1. You took Reglan or Metoclopramide longer than 90 days.

2. You have been diagnosed with Tardive Dyskinesia or other movement disorder.

3. You have been off the drug for longer than 90 days.

Conservative estimates state that more than two million people use products containing metoclopramide in the U.S. alone. The FDA has reported that use of drug products such as Reglan or those containing metoclopramide is the most common cause of these induced movement disorders. If you are one of the many Americans who have been injured from use of this drug, it is important that you seek legal advice to protect your rights.
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If you have been diagnosed with a liver transplant or liver failure due to taking Tylenol, it is absolutely essential that you meet with an attorney to discuss your legal rights. Here are some of the most important conditions:

1. You have been actually diagnosed with liver failure or a liver transplant.

2. You had been taking either Tylenol or Acetaminophen (generic version of Tylenol) which caused the liver problem.

3. It can help your case if you still have the bottle, receipt, or remember the store you bought it from.

4. It can also help if you are able to tell your lawyer whether it was prescription or nonprescription.

If you took Tylenol or another pharmaceutical drug and it injured you instead of helping you get better, you may be able to bring a product liability claim. Drug companies have been notorious about putting profits over patient lives and unfortunately, the FDA, whose job is to regulate unsafe foods and drugs often finds the problem too late.

We represent real people who have been injured as a result of a variety of unsafe drugs, including but not limited to:

Tylenol Reglan Avandia Yazmin Paxil Drugs that cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome
Defective drugs come in all types of packages and can cause serious injury including death. Products liability cases are filed by a person or person’s family member who has suffered injury or death due to the negligence of a pharmaceutical company manufacturing or designing a dangerous drug. This is why strong consumer safety laws are so essential so that the public is protected from harm.
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A California Highway Patrol police officer helped rescue a runaway Toyota Prius speeding out of control at 94 miles per hour to a safe stop after the car’s accelerator went out of control nearly killing the driver.

The driver explained that he wasn’t doing anything but the car kept speeding up and that he could smell brakes burning because he pressed the pedal so hard.

The CHP police car pulled alongside the Prius and officers told the Toyota driver over a loudspeaker to push the brake pedal to the floor and turn on the emergency brake. Additionally, the police got the car on a steep upgrade to slow it down.

After the car decelerated to 50 miles per hour, the driver shut off the engine and coasted to a halt. The police then maneuvered his car in front of the Prius as a precaution.

Toyota dispatched a field technical specialist to San Diego to investigate.
Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles worldwide — more than 6 million in the United States — because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius.

Toyota owners have complained of their vehicles speeding out of control despite efforts to slow down, sometimes resulting in deadly crashes. The government has received complaints of 34 deaths linked to sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles since 2000.
One of the crashes killed a California police officer last year with his wife, brother in law, and the couples daughter after his Lexus accelerator got stuck,slammed into another vehicle at about 100 mph, careened off the freeway, hit an embankment, overturned and burst into flames.
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Hundreds of patients who have taken Avandia, a drug for diabetes, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure every month, determined by confidential government reports recommending the drug be taken off the market.

Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration and authors of these reports, recommended that Avandia be withdrawn. The battle has been brewing for years but has been brought to a head by disagreement over a new clinical trial and a Senate investigation that concluded that GlaxoSmithKline should have warned patients earlier of the drug’s potential risks.

In 2008, the United States Supreme Court heard the groundbreaking case, Wyeth v. Levine, and held that Federal regulatory approval of a medication does not shield the manufacturer from liability under state law. Wyeth v. Levine 129 S. Ct. 1187 (2008).

Under Georgia State law, a drug manufacture like GlaxoSmithKline may be liable for a failure to warn adequately of known or reasonably foreseeable dangers in the use of the drug.
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Toyota, has just announced a recall of 2.3 million vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals. This is a very serious problem that has caused very tragic accidents including deaths.

One of the most horrific incidents occurred the day after Christmas in Texas, when a 2008 Toyota sped off the road, through a fence, and landed upside down in a pond killing the driver and passengers inside. In another case, a Toyota New Jersey owner drove all the way back to his local dealer with his car speeding out of control even though his foot was not touching the gas pedal.

Safety analysts have pointed to electronic defects in the vehicles and multiple other Toyota owners have made similar claims about electronic problems in their cars over the last few years even though Toyota originally dismissed them as unfounded. Continued reports of runaway Toyotas since the original November recall have called into question the company’s fierce denials.

But now Toyota has acknowledged a “sticking accelerator problem” in its vehicles and announced the latest recall, which affects Camrys from 2007 to 2010, the RAV4, Corolla, and Matrix models from 2009 and 2010, the 2007 to 2010 Tundra and the 2008 to 2010 Sequoias, Avalons from model years 2005 to 2010, and the 2010 Highlander. Approximately 1.7 million of the vehicles cited are also affected by the earlier recall.

In Georgia, Toyota manufacturers would be held strictly liable in products liability torts action. Georgia lawmakers did this in order to protect the consumer by shifting the burden of the loss to the wrongdoer, i.e. the manufacturer of the defective product that caused the injuries. The essential elements of this tort action are: first, the manufacture of the product (Toyota manufactured the cars); second, a defective product (the vehicles are in fact defective hence the recalls); third, an injury to a natural person proximately caused by the defect (multiple Toyota owners suffered injuries due to this defect); fourth, a sale of the product as a new product (Toyota dealers sold these new vehicles off their dealership lots); and fifth, the existence of the defect at the time the product left the manufacturer’s control (the defect was present when Toyota sold the car to consumers.)
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Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl and several other over the counter drugs have been recalled after complaints of the pills having an unusual mildew odor leading to gastrointestinal problems. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has cracked down on the manufacturer Johnson and Johnson for not responding to these complaints and for a delay in resolving the issue that was first exposed in 2008. Consequently the FDA is giving the company 15 days to correct the problem as well as prevent future violations in addition to warning them of legal action, sanctions, and injunctions.

Recalled products include: Benedryl allergy ultratab tablets, junior strength Motrin, children’s Tylenol grape meltaway tablets, extra strength Tylenol, extra strength Tylenol rapid release gelcaps, extra strength Tylenol PM geltabs, Motrin caplets, extra strength Rolaids fresh mint tablets, extra strength Tylenol rapid release gelcaps, and St. Joseph Aspirin chewable orange tablets.

Consumers can also call 1-888-222-6036 or log on to www.mcneilproductrecall.com in addition to calling their health care provider if they have any concerns.
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Several years ago a huge international scandal erupted surrounding the Chinese exporting lead contaminated toys to forty countries, sickening children from around the world who were exposed to the dangerous poisonous products.

You may remember the American toy company Mattel ended up having to recall over 1.5 million Chinese toys because of lead hazards. Unfortunately, since that big scandal several years ago, toy manufacturers from China have sought to replace lead from their products with an equally cheap and dangerous product called cadmium—a carcinogen that hinders brain development in young children who can suffer exposure to the poison just by putting the toys in their mouths.

Just yesterday the Associated Press reported that federal and state investigators have conducted investigations on the use of cadmium which have been found in children’s jewelry items imported from China in U.S. stores that included pendants from three Flip Flop bracelets and four “The Princess and The Frog” necklaces bought at Walmart and two charms on a “Best Friends” bracelet bought at the jewelry chain Claire’s.