prescription medicine recalls: Prescription medicine Bill (drugrisk) Closer to Passing in OklahomaPeople expect prescription drugs to be safe and help them recover from a medical condition. They are not expecting to be harmed by these medications. Therefore, when there is a recall of a prescription drug, people take notice. This article details some of the biggest prescription drug recalls and monetary judgments that resulted in large awards as a result of the hard work provided by class action lawsuit attorneys to those who have been injured by these dangerous medications. The Fen-Phen Recall (http://www.drugrisk.com/yaz/recall) It was on the market for twenty four years before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated a recall. This medication was prescribed for weight loss, but those taking it began to suffer from serious heart and pulmonary conditions. As a result, about 50,000 people who have been prescribed this drug filed lawsuits against the drug’s manufacturer Wyeth-Ayerst because of their injuries. The cost to this manufacturer is unprecedented and is equal to more than $21 billion in terms of financial awards to victims and legal costs. The DES Recall Diethylstilbestrol was on the market even more longer than Fen-Phen. After being prescribed for pregnant women for thirty seven years, a direct correlation between DES and a rare tumor was discovered in 1971. A significant number of girls whose mothers took DES were being diagnosed with this rare tumor, so the FDA prohibited physicians from prescribing this medication to women. Because several manufacturers were responsible for distributing this drug, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much the recall cost them overall, but it is known to be a very large sum of money. The Vioxx Recall It was only on the market for 5 years before it was recalled in 2004. This medicine was being prescribed to arthritis sufferers, but it caused them more harm than good because it increased the possibility that these patients would experience a heart attack or stroke. The public was more vocal and outraged about this recall than any other, and the drug’s manufacturer Merck and the FDA received criticism for overlooking the warning signs that Vioxx was a dangerous drug. Merck spent nearly $1 billion defending itself against lawsuits, but the overall financial impact was equal to $4.8 billion in the United States alone. The Bextra Recall (drugrisk.com) Another medicine that physicians prescribed to arthritis sufferers around the same time that Vioxx was being prescribed was Bextra. The problems with Bextra began to present themselves rather quickly, and the medicine was recalled after being on the market for only one year in 2005. Bextra was found to cause some of the problems as Vioxx, including an increased possibility of heart attack and stroke. However, Bextra also can cause those who take it to suffer from a deadly skin condition. (Yaz) Pfizer the creator of Bextra and its subsidiary were forced to pay $1.8 billion in monetary awards to the victims, but there was another component in this case. Pfizer received a fine equal to $1.195 billion after admitting that it had the “intent to defraud” when advertising this drug in the press.
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