Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

The family of a Tennessee woman who died, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit over Pradaxa against Boehringer Ingelheim, alleging that the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the risks associated with the blood thinner.

The lawsuit was brought this week by Bertha Bivens, the daughter of Nancy Brummett, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

According to allegations in the lawsuit, Brummett was prescribed the new blood thinner in January 2011, for long-term treatment of atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is a very common cardiac arrhythmia.

According to a British health agency, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), millions of people worldwide who have received metal-on-metal hip replacement may need to get blood tests for the rest of their lives.

Many metal hip replacement systems contain chromium and cobalt in the ball-and-socket device, which became popular due to the untested belief that they would be more durable to younger, more active hip patients.

Recently, there has been damaging data to indicate that these types of hip implants not only have a high rate of failure, but also shed metal particles into the body that can cause metallosis.

Bayer Healthcare reports that it has reached agreements to settle Yaz and Yasmin deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism lawsuits brought by at least 70 women.

Earlier in the week, the judge ordered that the bellwether trials been postponed for another 60 days. The bell-wether trial were scheduled for April and now are moved out to June 2012.

Here is a copy of the court transcript. “MINUTE ORDER STAYING DEADLINES AND CONTINUING BELLWETHER TRIAL: All current deadlines related to bellwether matters are extended 60 days and the bellwether trial is continued until further order, due to the courts calendar.. Signed by Chief Judge David R. Herndon on 2/29/2012.”

A panel of federal judges will hear arguments in March on the centralization all Zoloft lawsuits filed in U.S. District Courts.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) has set a hearing for March 29. The lawyers will argument whether federal complaints filed against Pfizer by parents of children born with birth defects should be centralized for pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

Pfizer filed a motion seeking that the lawsuits should be consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. MDL is designed to avoid potentially conflicting pretrial rulings from different judges, reduce duplicative discovery and to serve the convenience of the witnesses, the parties and the courts.

Dr Shezad Malik Law Firm examines the evidence of risk from metal-on-metal hips, the manufacturers’ inadequate response, and how the regulatory bodies failed.

Thousands of patients around the world may have been exposed to toxic metal substances after being implanted with poorly regulated and potentially dangerous hip devices, according to a BMJ/BBC Newsnight investigation.

The implants are the so called “metal on metal”—the head at the top and the lining of the cup it fits into are made of cobalt-chromium alloy rather than ceramic or polyethylene—and there are both total hip replacement and hip resurfacing designs.

Three women have filed a product liability lawsuit against Forest Laboratories alleging birth defects from the use of Lexapro. Lexapro is an antidepressant that each of the plaintiffs claimed to have used while pregnant.

The Lexapro lawsuits were filed on February 16 in St. Louis Circuit Court, in Missouri.

All three plaintiffs, Kimberlee Fisher, Kristy Hernandez and Leah Scott, allege that they gave birth to children who suffer from congenital defects.

Dr Shezad Malik Law Firm is expanding their initiatives focused on identifying recipients of metal-on-metal hip implants, that has failed, or are in the process of failing.

While one specific type of metal-on-metal hip implant called the DePuy ASR has been recalled, the group expects there to be many more recalls of metal-on-metal hip implants, because of the high probability of failure.

The 2010 DePuy Hip Replacement Recall was instituted when DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., a division of Johnson and Johnson. Johnson & Johnson recalled its ASR XL Acetabular metal-on-metal hip replacement system, on August 24, 2010.

European drug regulators are demanding new kidney damage warnings for Tekturna and other drugs containing the active ingredient aliskiren.

The new warnings and contraindications were announced by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) last week.

Tekturna (aliskiren) is manufactured by Novartis and was first approved in the United States in 2007 for the treatment of hypertension.

Aimee L. Flynn, from Pennsylvania, has filed a lawsuit over NuvaRing. Flynn suffered a stroke that was allegedly caused by the popular birth control ring.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on February 3. Flynn used the Nuva Ring contraceptive from October 2008 through February 2010.

The lawsuit names Merck & Co., Organon Pharmaceuticals, Akzo Nobel NV and Schering-Plough Corporation as defendants. Organon is a subsidiary of Shering-Plough, which was purchased by Merck.