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Much to the objection of Bayer Healthcare, Mirena IUD lawsuits at the federal level have been centralized into multidistrict litigation or MDL. The cases will be transferred to a U.S. District Court Judge in the Southern District of New York.  This makes the claim a mini-class action.  What does this mean?  The Mirena lawsuits are consolidated for discovery purposes.  They become one class case for a while.  If a global settlement of these Mirena lawsuits cannot be achieved, they will be sent back to their individual states for trial.

Last week, we told you that similar consolidation was being reconsidered at the state level, where more than 60 Mirena IUD lawsuits are currently pending.  Currently, there are only about 40 lawsuits in federal court, however, it is anticipated by some plaintiffs’ attorneys that several thousand cases will be filed by women who have experienced complications from Mirena IUD.

If you used Mirena and experienced complications, including surgical removal, infection, or Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) and want to inquire as to whether you have a lawsuit, contact our Mirena defect lawyers at 1.800.553.8082, or online here.

The FDA proposed last month that makers of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) be required to submit pre-market approval (PMA) applications for these devices.  Why?  They have received 45,000 reports – not a typo – of failures of these devices in the last 8 years.  My gosh, I’m surprised they are so ubiquitous that they even have been used 45,000 times.

But these things – these literal life and death machines – have had 8 recalls in the last eight years.  Pathetic.  The problems usually involve the AEDs powering off during use, error messages caused by software anomalies, or just component failure.

I don’t trust these things. Yet I still dutifully carry one on the court when I play tennis with my father.  Can you imagine the horror of needing to use one of these things and you are getting an error message?

Should all transvaginal mesh products be recalled?

Should we get rid of the vaginal mesh product completely?

It is a fair question. These products – and we see juries starting to prove this point – are a train wreck.  These companies – all of them, it seems – were chasing profits and ignoring the harm they were causing women.  It really is as simple as that.

Last month brought changes to thirty-five (35) medical product labels (up from 27 changes in January), with changes to the prescribing information to include any of the following areas: boxed warnings, contraindications, warnings, precautions, adverse reactions, patient package insert, and medication guide.

For a complete detailed accounting of the label changes, refer to the summary of meds. By clicking onto the drug name, you can view the detailed summary, which will identify the safety labeling section and revised subsection, and a brief summary of the new or modified safety information.

The following medications have been affected:

On Friday, a federal jury in Utah ordered Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn Co to pay a hormone replacement therapy plaintiff $5.1 million after finding that her breast cancer was caused by Premarin, Provera, and Prempro and that the defendants failed to adequately warn about the risk of breast cancer and these drugs. Interestingly, the jury did not find the defendants liable on the strict liability failure to warn, and the negligent design defect claims.

The problem with these cases for the defendants is that they ask the jury to check their common sense at the door. Defense experts testified that the plaintiff’s breast cancer was the most common type occurring in women, regardless of their hormone therapy drug use. She also had other risk factors for breast cancer, including dense breast tissue.

In closing arguments, one of the defense lawyers said: “We don’t know what caused her first breast cancer mutation. But we know that without that mutation she would never have developed breast cancer.” In other words, set aside the studies that show these drugs cause breast cancer because she probably would have gotten it anyway because she had, you know, dense breast tissue. Please.

The Sixth Circuit ruled that a plaintiff’s warning and design defect claims in a shoulder injury may proceed, overturning an entry of summary judgement.

This is a big win in a tough case on behalf of a 17-year-old girl who used a pain pump after arthroscopic surgery on her shoulder. Her doctor chose a Breg Pain Care 4200 pain pump to control the Plaintiff’s pain for four days after the surgery. The Plaintiff suffered from glenohumeral chondrolysis, a condition in which the shoulder cartilage is permanently destroyed, as a result, allegedly, of her use of the Breg pain pump that will necessitate multiple shoulder replacements for this young girl in the future. Awful, right?

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The Chantix MDL judge ruled Monday that the 2009 black box warning on the drug’s label sufficiently provided a warning as a matter of law that suicidal and violent acts may cause taking Chantix. But, ultimately, the court punted the question of how that impact that statutes of limitations to individual courts, presumably by individual federal courts who hear the case after remand.

The 6th Circuit affirmed a summary judgment ruling this week in a shoulder pain pump case. The court found that as of 2004, Stryker did not know that its drug pumps could cause shoulder cartilage damage or know that additional warnings would have deterred his surgeon from using the device. The plaintiffs argued that safety signals were in the literature since 1933 and emerged within several pain pump manufacturers’ internal files, alerting the companies of the risks associated with pain pumps. But the plaintiff did not claim that Stryker knew its pain pumps could cause chondrolysis because there were no reported cases linked to anesthetics until 2005.

Plaintiff’s argument was essentially: “You should have been able to figure it out.” Rodriguez claims instead that Stryker should have known about the risk. Plaintiff pointed to 13 articles that it claims put Stryker on notice about the danger of using its pain pumps inside a joint. Clearly, the plaintiffs see foreseeability more broadly than chondolysis and more like, “Did you know that there might be something rotten in Mudville that let you know there was a concern with pain pumps and shoulders?”

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Like most lawyers writing about mass tort drug injury cases, our firm is looking to attract potential hip replacement recall cases.

One means of accomplishing this goal – as opposed to providing real information that is of use to victims which attracts attention from the search engines – is to buy pay-per-click advertising. I’m philosophically opposed to pay-per-click because I feel like 90% of the clicks are other lawyers snooping around to see who is buying the placement.

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A federal judge dismissed a Yaz class action lawsuit. No, not the Yaz/Yasmin/Ocella lawsuits where women were injured from taking Yaz. This was a different lawsuit that seeks class-action status to California women who alleged not physical harm but economic injury. The lead plaintiff’s argument was an interesting one: they picked YAZ as an oral contraceptive, as opposed to selecting an equally effective cheaper oral contraceptive, because of the direct-to-consumer advertisements containing material omissions regarding the limitations and/or approved uses of Yaz.

Maybe this claim makes sense. I don’t know. But the judge shot down the idea of the lead plaintiff because she is a friend and co-worker of one of the class attorneys. The court addressed the problem with the plaintiffs in many of these economic injury class action claims:

Given that the potential recovery for plaintiffs is minimal compared to the potentially high amount of attorneys’ fees that may be awarded, Ms. Burns may be more concerned with helping to maximize the monetary return of her ‘good friend’ and co-worker (counsel’s wife) than with her duty to zealously advocate on behalf of the class’ interests,” the judge said. “Considering this, the Court finds that Ms. Burns is not sufficiently independent of class counsel and does not satisfy the adequacy of representation prong.