Personal Injury

September 23, 2009

Texas Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella Birth Control Lawsuit Update

Yasmin (also known as Yaz/drospirenone/ethinyl Estradiol. Generic : Ocella) is a birth control pill developed and manufactured by Bayer, AG. The medicine works by disrupting a woman’s natural menstrual cycle and providing a daily dose of hormones to regulate a new menstrual cycle.

Bayer AG has been involved in a few discussions with the Food and Drug Administration over questionable advertising campaigns seeming to suggest that Yasmin/Yaz has less side effects than other contraceptive medications.

Recent reports indicate that dangerous side effects could occur in women with preexisting conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity.

September 23, 2009

Medical Malpractice: Hospital Negligent in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Brooklyn man brought to Maimonides Medical Center with chest pains in July 2008 endured what his family now calls a tragedy of errors that led to his death.

Jacob Goldbrenner was sent to the Brooklyn hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab so doctors could treat his ailing heart. But they couldn’t find the key to the lab.

They couldn’t locate an anesthesiologist. And then one doctor couldn’t even find the lab itself, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Minutes turned to hours as the 52-year-old clothing salesman’s condition worsened.

“We all felt a sense of desperation and frustration,” said Baruch Goldbrenner, 27, who watched his father’s health deteriorate.

September 22, 2009

Jury Awards Family more than $11 M in Texas Motor Speedway Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Tarrant County jury has awarded more than $11 million to the family of a boy who was seriously injured after being struck by a car driven by another child in the parking lot at Texas Motor Speedway.

The parents of Ryan Davies, who was injured in 2006, sued the speedway after an accident left the boy with traumatic brain injuries that limit his mobility and mental capacity.

September 21, 2009

Paxil-Linked Birth Defects Alarmed Glaxo in 1997

by Dr. Shezad Malik

GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s scientists were alarmed by a rising number of birth defects among pregnant women taking the antidepressant Paxil in 1997, according to internal documents revealed in a trial in Philadelphia.

There was a 13.3 percent rate of incidence for congenital abnormalities as of November 1997, according to the documents presented by lawyers for the family of an injured child suing the company.

“Taken at face value this presents an alarming finding,” according to the internal report. That language was later deleted, the documents show. The information was never submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, former FDA doctor Suzanne Parisian told jurors Sept. 18.

September 21, 2009

Dioxin levels high in Vietnam near US base

by Dr. Shezad Malik

New environmental tests confirm extremely high levels of dioxin, the toxic ingredient of Agent Orange, in people, fish and soil near a former U.S. air base where American troops stored the herbicide during the Vietnam War.

“Time is of the essence” to finish cleaning up the site, now home to the Danang airport, where dioxin levels in the soil, sediment and fish were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted levels, the survey by the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants said.

The survey also found that temporary containment measures jointly implemented by the U.S. and Vietnam in 2007 have apparently resulted in lower dioxin levels in people who live near the site.

September 20, 2009

Women Should Take Safest Birth-Control Pill

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Doctors should prescribe the birth- control pills that are the least likely to cause blood clots, according to a study of more than 3,000 women published in the British Medical Journal.

Oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel and a low dose of estrogen, such as Bayer AG’s Microgynon 30, were associated with the lowest risk of blood clots in the leg or lungs, researchers at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands found. Birth-control pills containing desogestrel, cyproterone acetate or drospirenone carried about 1.5 to 2 times the risk of clots, they found.

September 20, 2009

Oral Contraceptives History and Facts

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Forty years ago, on September 4, 1969, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared the new birth control pill to be “safe” for use by women to regulate births.

Forty years later, the true safety of oral contraception is still in question.

September 19, 2009

Pennsylvania to be Center of State Court Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella Birth Control Litigation

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Judge Sandra Mazer Moss, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, consolidated all lawsuits filed in Philadelphia that involve Bayer’s popular birth control pills, commonly known as Yaz, and Yasmin. Philadelphia is likely to be the country’s center for state court litigation involving this widely used birth control pill.

The lawsuits allege that Yaz and Yasmin have risks beyond those of traditional birth control pills, because they contain DRSP (drospirenone), and that Bayer over-promoted the drug without disclosing risks. Bayer was warned by the FDA, in the fall of 2008, that Bayer’s television ads were misleading and were not disclosing these additional risks.

September 19, 2009

Pfizer Says Lawsuit Consultant Tried to Sway Witness

by Dr. Shezad Malik

– Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, said a consultant to plaintiffs’ attorneys in lawsuits over its epilepsy drug Neurontin tried to tamper with a prospective witness.

Dr. David Egilman, a Brown University medical professor, “improperly contacted” the treating physician of a Massachusetts man whose family claims he killed himself after taking the drug, Pfizer said in a court filing. Pfizer asked the judge to punish Egilman for sending a sealed document to the doctor. Pfizer faces a trial in this case, brought by the family of Hartley Shearer, in March.

Egilman’s letter to Shearer’s doctor was “a transparent attempt to taint her perceptions of Pfizer shortly before her deposition,” Pfizer said. Egilman enclosed “a confidential internal e-mail between Pfizer employees,” along with other documents, in his letter to Dr. Lisa Catapano-Friedman, the company said.

September 18, 2009

Glaxo Linked Birth Defect of Fetus to Paxil

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Officials of GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, said in 2001 that a birth defect in the fetus of a woman taking its Paxil antidepressant likely was linked to the drug, according to court testimony.

After analyzing a 2001 e-mail from a Paxil user who aborted her fetus because it had a heart defect, Glaxo officials noted in company files they were “almost certain” the drug was related to the problem, Jane Nieman, a former Glaxo drug-safety executive, told a Pennsylvania jury.