Personal Injury

April 22, 2010

Crowley Texas High School Mourns Death of Student in Car Crash

Students at Crowley High School mourned the loss of sophomore Germain Harris II, who died in a car wreck.

Harris, 16, died after his car struck a sign pole in front of an Arby’s restaurant in the 3800 block of Altamesa Boulevard in southwest Fort Worth. The wreck happened at about 10:20 p.m.

The 1992 Lexus coupe was traveling at a “high rate of speed,” said Sgt. Pedro Criado, a Fort Worth police spokesman.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/16/2121090/crowley-high-school-mourns-death.html#ixzz0lKGU8DSm

April 21, 2010

FDA Warns Pfizer For Lax Oversight of Geodon Drug Study

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Federal regulators say the drugmaker Pfizer has failed to correct problems with its testing procedures that resulted in overdoses of several children during a company trial.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter saying Pfizer did not properly monitor physicians testing an experimental medication, which the agency did not name. A Pfizer spokeswoman said the drug is Geodon, which the company was studying for children with bipolar disorder.

The trial was completed in July 2007 and the FDA is now considering whether to approve the pill for children.

The FDA warning letter, posted online, follows up on problems first cited in 2006, when 26 pediatric patients in a company trial received overdoses of the psychiatric drug. Despite Pfizer retraining the physicians, FDA says three additional overdoses occurred in 2007.

Read full AP story here.

April 21, 2010

Life Time Fitness Company Sues Mother of Drowned Boy

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Two years ago, 4-year-old Colin Holst drowned in a Life Time Fitness swimming pool surrounded by adults and lifeguards.

After being hit with a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit by Colin’s parents, Life Time is suing Colin’s mother and two of her friends, accusing them of trespassing, fraud and breach of contract. The company claims that Jana Holst, Jennie Stafford and Deborah Stack did not follow the gym’s guest policy and that the women should pay damages, court costs and all other expenses related to the lawsuits surrounding Colin’s death.

Read full story here.

April 20, 2010

NUVARING® Manufacturers and Distributors Sued for Wrongful Death

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Many lawsuits have been filed against the pharmaceutical companies associated with the birth control product NUVARING® in the United States.

NUVARING® is a birth control product that releases two synthetic hormones, etonogestrel (a progestin) and ethinyl estradiol (an estrogen), into the woman’s body.

The lawsuit complaints allege that the parties named as defendants, which includes Organon USA, Inc., Organon Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Organon International, Inc., Akzo Nobel NV, Organon Biosciences, N.V., and Schering-Plough Corporation, not only knew about the potential side effects associated with NUVARING®, but concealed those risks from the public, including the FDA during the approval process.

April 19, 2010

ENDOSCOPY CENTER OUTBREAK: Hepatitis C case goes to trial

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Robert Eglet’s client, is infected with hepatitis C, and his Las Vegas law firm going head to head with one of the largest drugmakers in the world and its international law firm.

It’s a battle that began more than two years ago after local health officials announced a hepatitis C outbreak linked to Las Vegas endoscopy clinics. Investigators said the outbreak was caused by nurse anesthetists who were reusing single-dose vials of anesthetic between patients at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and its sister clinics.

Read full story here.

April 17, 2010

Jury Awards $3M Damages in Mesothelioma Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

An Illinois maker of asbestos-laden shipboard parts was hit with a $2.99 million verdict brought by the spouse of a former Navy sailor who died a year ago of asbestos-related cancer.

After a 12-day trial in Newport News Circuit Court, a seven-member jury sided with the wife of Robert Hardick, a former Navy petty officer who was exposed to asbestos on Navy ships between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Read full story here.

April 17, 2010

Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella Concerns Bring Lawsuits But Few Answers

by Dr. Shezad Malik

When the oral contraceptives Yasmin and Yaz came on the market in 2001 and 2006, respectively, they were thought to be safer than other birth control pills because they contained a different kind of synthetic progestin.

But in the lawsuits against the pills’ maker, Bayer HealthCare, plaintiff attorneys claim that the progestin contained in the pills, drospirenone, is the cause of health problems, including deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in the deep veins), strokes, heart attacks and gallbladder disease.

Read the full story here at the LA Times.

April 15, 2010

Bayer Told to Revise Yaz, Yasmin Marketing Materials

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Federal regulators are requiring Bayer Healthcare to revise its marketing materials for Yaz and Yasmin to reflect new safety information that was recently added to the drugs’ labels. In a letter to Bayer dated April 7, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) said revisions must include “prominent disclosure of the important new safety information.”
Bayer announced that it was updating the “Warning” sections of the Yaz and Yasmin labels to include additional information about the risk of blood clots associated with the birth control pills. The new information is based on two large, multiyear studies of more than 120,000 women taking contraceptives in the U.S. and the U.K., Bayer said.

Read the full story here.

April 12, 2010

NuvaRing Named in 300 Product Liability Lawsuits

by Dr. Shezad Malik

NuvaRing, a contraceptive device marketed by Organon Pharmaceuticals and Merck & Co., has been named in some 300 product liability lawsuits. The lawsuits claim that NuvaRing caused plaintiffs to suffer serious, life-threatening blood clots.

NuvaRing is a transparent, flexible vaginal ring that provides month-long birth control by emitting a continuous dose of estrogen and progestin for 21 days. The device releases a combination of ethinyl estradiol, a form of the hormone estrogen, and etonogestral. Nuvaring is marketed as providing the same efficacy as birth control pills but more convenient by offering month-long protection.

Read the full story here.

April 11, 2010

Phila. Jury Awards $89 M in Plane Crash

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury awarded $89 million to family members of passengers killed in a Youngstown, Ohio, plane crash and a survivor, finding that the manufacturer of the plane’s engine had concealed information about a faulty carburetor that caused the crash.

The six-seat Piper Cherokee, built in 1968, crashed shortly after takeoff following a refueling stop in Youngstown in 1999.

Read the full story here.