American women in the 1990s were told they could help their bodies ward off major illness by taking menopausal hormone drugs. Some medical associations said so. Many gynecologists and physicians said so. Respected medical journals said so, too. Along the way, television commercials positioned hormone drugs as treatments for more…
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has paid almost $1 billion to resolve lawsuits over Paxil since it introduced the antidepressant in 1993, including about $390 million for suicides or attempted suicides said to be linked to the drug, according to court records and people familiar with the cases. As part of the total,…
Janie Vinson was apparently so ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that the 79-year-old woman’s family told the medical staff at Albany, Ga.’s Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital not to try to cure her, but to simply keep her comfortable until she died. A Dougherty County jury awarded her daughter $3…
After 13 hours of intensifying pain, two trips to the emergency room and two CT scans, doctors finally found what was ailing Lottie Green. In her left lung, the pulmonologist told her, was the largest blood clot they had ever seen and there were others in her right lung as…
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is weighing further regulation of three drugs used to create high-contrast images on MRI scans, based on a new analysis that suggests they carry a higher risk of causing a rare, but potentially fatal disease. The issue, marks a setback for GE Healthcare (GE),…
A consumer advocacy group is petitioning the government to ban the weight loss pill Meridia because a recent study suggests it increases risk of heart attack, stroke and death. A letter Thursday from Public Citizen calls on the Food and Drug Administration to pull Abbott Laboratories’ drug from the U.S.…
A funeral is set for a retired Indiana National Guard commander who testified in October that exposure to a lethal carcinogen in Iraq caused his cancer. Lt. Col. James C. Gentry, 52, Williams, Ind., died of lung cancer. His death is a marker in a pending federal lawsuit; his life…
Once upon a time, asbestos was practically everywhere. Because the material causes devastating forms of cancer and lung disease, huge product-liability litigation sprung up. That led to huge settlements, which led to the establishment of huge trusts, created to assure payment to millions of current and future claimants. Some $20…
A jury has awarded $89 million in damages to the family of a man killed in a 2008 crash with a drunken driver, and to the man’s fiancée and daughter. “The eye-popping numbers were the jury’s attempt to send a message the only way they could,” said attorney Mark Bronson,…
The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission conceded that the agency “hasn’t been acting as quickly as it should” on crib safety problems. More than 2.1 million drop-side cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing of Canada are being recalled following reports of four infant suffocations. The CPSC said the recall…