Jacksonville Dangerous Drugs Lawyers
You go to your doctor with symptoms of an ailment and are prescribed a drug. No problem you think. My symptoms will disappear and I’ll be cured, or at least I’ll feel better. Most patients trust their doctors and the drugs they are prescribed, assuming the clinical trials required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) assure the safety of a drug for market. But the FDA is understaffed and drug companies, which used to be run by scientists, are increasingly run by marketers looking for the next blockbuster drug that can bring a company billions in profits.
Unfortunately, there have been countless examples of drugs either rushed to market or approved with important research withheld from regulators. The most outrageous example was Vioxx, made by Merck and approved in May of 1999 to treat the pain of arthritis. The highly controversial drug has been linked to approximately 30,000 deaths from heart attacks and strokes and much has been written about how company officials withheld research. But the year before it was removed from the market in 2004, Merck made $2.5 billion from Vioxx.
No one wants to believe that some manufacturers put profits over people, but sadly it sometimes happens.
Remember, all drugs have side effects and some can be more harmful to the patient than the ailment they are taking the drug to treat.
A responsible drug manufacturer is supposed to understand the potential dangers of its drug product and protect the public from these dangers. When a drug is dangerous but has a valuable benefit, the manufacturer is charged with adequately warning the public about the dangers so a reasonable patient can make a fully informed decision. But when a manufacturer fails on all counts, the company needs to be held accountable.
For those who are injured or killed by a dangerous drug, Jacksonville product liability litigation can hold those liable for lost wages, pain and suffering, and medical bills. Often this litigation is filed as a mass tort claim since many have been harmed by the same dangerous drug. Litigation may be the primary reason that a dangerous drug is ultimately removed from the market.
Some examples of dangerous drugs that have been removed from the market or are under investigation for harming patients include:
- Vioxx
- Heparin
- Fen-phen
- Oxycontin
- Neurontin
- Paxil
- Accutane
- Ortho Evra
- Kugel Mesh
- Digitek
- Fosamax
- Bextra
- Avandia
- Reglan
- Yaz
- Guidant defibrillators
- Celebrex
- Crestor
- Ephedra
Even over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol and Advil can have toxic effects. See more about dangerous drugs under the pharmaceutical litigation section of our website.
Similar to pharmaceuticals, medical devices are sometimes found defective after they have been implanted inside a patient such as heart defibrillators that have malfunctioned and caused deaths. Some of these implantable devices have never gone through premarket approval by the FDA, instead they are passed onto consumers through a little known loophole within the FDA known as 510 (k). A manufacturer only need claim his medical device is substantially similar to another device on the market to obtain approval.
All of this means that consumers need to be actively involved in their own medical care.
The Farah & Farah law firm uses a team approach in product liability and mass tort litigation. Because these cases can be complicated and take a long time, our attorneys, investigators, nurses, case managers, and paralegals all work for you and we advance the costs of taking your dangerous product case to trial. Do not delay as there may be a time limit within which a case can be filed. Call the Jacksonville product liability attorneys at Farah & Farah at 1-800-533-3555.