Product Liability

December 29, 2009

Toyota did not Disclose Potential Safety Problems

A Times investigation shows the world’s largest automaker has delayed recalls and attempted to blame human error in cases where owners claimed vehicle defects.

During a routine test on its Sienna minivan in April 2003, Toyota Motor Corp. engineers discovered that a plastic panel could come loose and cause the gas pedal to stick, potentially making the vehicle accelerate out of control.

The automaker redesigned the part and by that June every 2004 model year Sienna off the assembly line came with the new panel. Toyota did not notify tens of thousands of people who had already bought vans with the old panel.

Read the full story here.

December 27, 2009

FDA Says ‘Unlikely’ That Vytorin, Zetia Increase Cancer Risk

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it’s “unlikely” Merck & Co.’s cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia increase the risk of cancer or cancer-related death.

Still, the FDA said it can’t “definitively” rule out that the drugs may be associated with increased cancer risk.

“Based on the currently available information, FDA believes it is unlikely that Vytorin or Zetia increase the risk of cancer or cancer-related death, but at this time an association cannot be definitively ruled out,” the agency said in a posting on its Web site.

December 26, 2009

Pfizer Jury Said to Set Prempro Punitive Damages at $8 M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Jurors said in 2007 that a Pfizer Inc. unit should pay more than $8 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed the company’s menopause drugs for her breast cancer.

A Philadelphia jury in January 2007 awarded Mary Daniel compensatory damages of $1.5 million in her lawsuit against Pfizer’s Wyeth subsidiary over its Prempro menopause treatment. The panel recommended she get more than $8 million in punitive damages if an appeals court found she was entitled to such an award because of bad conduct by the company.

Read the full Bloomberg report here.

December 18, 2009

Prempro Litigation and Menopause

by Dr. Shezad Malik

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 than hot flashes and night sweats — just two of the better-known symptoms of menopause, which is technically defined as commencing one year after a woman’s last menstrual cycle.

One commercial about estrogen loss by the drug maker Wyeth discussed research into connections between menopause and heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and blindness.

December 16, 2009

Glaxo Said to Have Paid $1 Billion in Paxil Suits

by Dr. Shezad Malik

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, Glaxo, so far has paid $200 million to settle Paxil addiction and birth-defect cases and $400 million to end antitrust, fraud and design claims, according to the people and court records.

December 14, 2009

New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton is Lead Plaintiff in Chinese Drywall Suit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Saints coach Sean Payton is the lead plaintiff in a 591-page class action lawsuit against Knauf Plasterboard Tainjin Co. Ltd., a Chinese company that manufactured drywall that is believed to be corroding homes and making people sick.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on behalf of people with this particular brand of drywall, attempts to give some scope to the problem of defective drywall as both plaintiffs and defendants figure out how many people are affected and much it will cost to repair damage.

December 9, 2009

Bayer Must Pay Farmers for Contaminated Rice Crop

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Bayer CropScience LP must pay about $2 million for losses sustained by two Missouri farmers when an experimental variety of rice the company was testing cross-bred with their crops, a federal jury ruled.

The verdict in St. Louis came in the first trial in what is intended to be a series of test cases against the unit of Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer AG. The jury of four men and five women began deliberating on Dec. 2, about a month after it began hearing claims brought by Kenneth Bell and Johnny Hunter.

December 7, 2009

Fort Worth Texas Yaz Yasmin Birth Control Lawsuit Update

by Dr. Shezad Malik

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 well, she said.

Soon after the 41-year-old Bethesda, Md., resident was released from a hospital last month, Ms. Green joined hundreds of other women in lawsuits against Germany’s Bayer AG, the maker of the popular oral contraceptive Yaz.

December 6, 2009

FDA Review Says MRI Imaging Drugs That Contain Gadolinium Riskier for Kidney Patients

by Dr. Shezad Malik

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), which contends that its product is no riskier than competing imaging drugs. FDA reviewers said GE’s drug, Omniscan, had a disproportionately high number of reports of the disease compared with its peers.

December 5, 2009

Public Citizen Asks FDA to Ban Weight Loss Pill

by Dr. Shezad Malik

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. market, where it is used by roughly a quarter million people.

Preliminary results from a 10,000-patient study — known as the SCOUT study — showed a slightly higher risk of heart-related problems in patients taking Meridia, also called sibutramine, compared with a dummy pill. Patients in the study were older than 55, overweight with a history of heart disease or diabetes.