Product Liability

April 3, 2009

3rd Circuit: Kids Hurt by Vaccines Cannot Pursue Design Defect Claims

The 3rd Circuit has ruled that children allegedly injured by vaccines are barred from pursuing any design defect claims because Congress expressly prohibited such suits in an effort to guarantee immunity to manufacturers.

By rejecting the analysis of a recent ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court, the 3rd Circuit’s ruling in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth Inc. creates a direct split between the federal courts and a state’s highest court on the question of how broadly courts should read the pre-emption clause in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

April 1, 2009

Pfizer Settles Rezulin Product Liabilty Cases

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Pfizer Inc. resolved all but three of 35,000 claims over its withdrawn diabetes drug Rezulin for a total of about $750 million.

Pfizer, which is acquiring rival Wyeth for almost $64 billion, paid about $500 million to settle Rezulin cases consolidated in federal court in New York, according to court filings. The company also paid as much as $250 million to resolve state-court suits.

March 21, 2009

Diacetyl Popcorn Workers Lung Victim, Wife Awarded $7.5 Million

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A jury has ruled in favor of a plaintiff in a Popcorn Workers Lung lawsuit. According to The Associated Press, the federal jury in Iowa yesterday ordered a flavorings manufacturer to pay the victim – who died just a day before of complications from Popcorn Workers Lung – and his wife $7.5 million for causing his injuries.

Popcorn Workers Lung is a potentially life threatening ailment, for which the only cure is a lung transplant. The disease – also known as bronchiolitis obliterans – has been linked to diacetyl, a chemical used to give microwave popcorn and other snack foods a buttery flavor.

March 16, 2009

Medtronic Links Device for Heart to 13 Deaths

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Medtronic said that at least 13 people might have died in connection with a heart device that it recalled in 2007 but was still in widespread use, including four patients whose deaths were related to efforts by doctors to surgically remove the product.

The new data reflect the first fatality update by Medtronic since October 2007, when it recalled the device — a thin electrical cable that connects an implanted defibrillator to a patient’s heart. The company cited five deaths when it recalled the product, saying fractures in the cable could cause a defibrillator to fail to deliver a lifesaving shock to an erratically beating heart, or to fire for no reason.

Separately, a previously undisclosed Food and Drug Administration report indicates that Medtronic began receiving reports soon after the device reached the market in late 2004 that the cable, known as the Sprint Fidelis, was fracturing. The company also revised its manufacturing process in the months before withdrawing the Sprint Fidelis from the market, according to the F.D.A. report.

March 12, 2009

FDA issues peanut safety guidelines for foodmakers

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued safety guidelines for companies that use peanut products today and said it may seize products that test positive for salmonella bacteria.

While heat-sensitive, salmonella bacteria become heat-resistant in high-fat environments such as peanut butter, according to the FDA guidance.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention government said 683 people in 46 states have been sickened in the outbreak linked to foods that used peanut ingredients made by the now-bankrupt Peanut Corp of America.

March 11, 2009

New Questions About Seroquel And Diabetes

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Shortly after new antipsychotic drugs came on the market in the late 1990s, the Food and Drug Administration started to worry that they might trigger diabetes in some patients.

So in 2000, the FDA asked AstraZeneca P.L.C. and other pharmaceutical companies to share data on cases of new-onset diabetes and related illnesses in patients taking the drugs. AstraZeneca, told the FDA that patients and doctors had reported 12 new cases of diabetes and five cases of related illnesses among the 623,000 who had taken its antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

But internally, the company had reported the number as 27 cases of diabetes and two of hyperglycemia, according to court documents recently released.

March 9, 2009

Peanut Processor Has No Money For Injuries

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Sickened consumers who sued the peanut processor blamed for a national salmonella outbreak could have trouble recovering damages from company accounts because assets listed in a bankruptcy filing will likely go to other businesses that bought its products.

Lynchburg-based Peanut Corp. of America filed documents listing nearly $11.4 M in assets and debts of $4.8 M in U.S. Bankruptcy court. However, more than $7 M listed as assets was in insurance that covers the company’s products and will not be used for claims by consumers. Among the uses for that money would be compensating businesses that had bought Peanut Corp. products that were recalled, trustee Roy V. Creasy said.

March 8, 2009

Dog Lease Injures a Denton Texas Girl

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Dereka Williams, 13, living in Denton Texas was partially blinded last year when a retractable dog leash broke and struck her in the eye. “I was in the driveway and my dog was kind of running and I was trying to pull her and the leash broke,” said Dereka.

SlyDog, the inexpensive retractable leash Dereka’s father bought to keep track of Diamond, the family’s 25-pound blue pit bull terrier puppy, had recoiled without warning. It struck Dereka in her left eye and tore the retina.

“She kept saying, ‘Mommy I can’t see, I can’t see,’ ” said her mother, Joy Williams. “I thought she was exaggerating. Her eye was bloodshot. You could see the metal piece sticking out of her eyeball.”

March 6, 2009

US Supreme Court Rejects Limits on Drug Lawsuits

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The Supreme Court forcefully rejected calls for limiting consumer lawsuits against drug makers, upholding a $6.7 million jury award to a musician who lost her arm to gangrene following an injection.

The decision is the second this term to reject business groups’ arguments that federal regulation effectively pre-empts consumer complaints under state law.

Diana Levine of Vermont once played the guitar and piano professionally. Her right arm was amputated after she was injected with Phenergan, an anti-nausea medicine made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, using a method that brings rapid relief, but with grievous risks if improperly administered.

In a 6-3 decision, the court turned away Wyeth’s claim that federal approval of Phenergan and its warning label should have shielded the company from lawsuits like Levine’s.

March 4, 2009

Florida Smokers’ $580 M Trust Fund and Justice Department Settles for $18 M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The trustee of a trust fund for sick Florida smokers is prepared to settle some claims by the federal government for $18 million, freeing up the rest of the $580 million fund for smokers and their attorneys.

“We have reached an agreement in principle with the Department of Justice in full settlement of all claims for reimbursement of Medicare and Veterans Administration benefits received by beneficiaries” of the fund, according to fund trustee Miles McGrane.

When it comes to how the settlement money would be paid, McGrane offered two scenarios — a quick and easy method dividing the total by about 45,000 authorized claimants for a charge of $400 each or a belabored process of running their Social Security numbers through Medicare and VA databases to check for individual benefit payments.