Dangerous Drug Claims
Let a Dangerous Drug Lawyer Help You Navigate Your Prescription Drug Claim
After a Prescription Drug Injury, You Need Searcy Denney
Most people in the United States take at least one prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) drug. Although medications are perfectly safe for certain patients, those same drugs may be dangerous for other patients. Dangerous drugs could be deemed defective for various reasons, but not all are the subject of recalls.
With recalls, a drug may be deemed a defective product and dangerous for all patients. With dangerous drugs, some patients may be at risk of sustaining injuries while others may not. As such, a drug may not be harmful to one person but could be for another.
Such drugs are not always recalled when injuries occur, but the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may require drug manufacturers to place enhanced “black box” warnings on the drug’s label. Medications that carry dangerous risks that are not warned about can cause permanent or fatal injuries.
At Searcy Denney, each prescription drug attorney at our firm fights tirelessly to ensure pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals are held responsible when their conduct causes a patient to sustain severe and often permanent injuries.
When is a Drug Deemed Dangerous?
Drugs (whether prescription or over the counter) can be dangerous in various ways, and it is important to keep in mind that a drug that is typically considered safe can be extremely dangerous in certain situations. Examples of when a drug becomes dangerous include, among others, the following:
- Drug defects, such as contamination, which is a type of manufacturing defect (as discussed on our defective drugs page)
- Prescription mistakes, such as prescribing a drug a patient is allergic to or prescribing a medication that interacts with a drug a patient is already taking
- Dispensing errors on the part of a pharmacy, such as administering the wrong medication or wrong dose of medication contrary to a doctor’s prescription
- The development of severe and sometimes permanent or fatal side effects that are not warned about in drug’s label as well as in the drug’s instructions or directions for use
Although doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies may be to blame in some instances where a patient is injured because of prescribing or dosing mishaps, a substantial number of lawsuits involve the manufacturers of those drugs, which is collectively and commonly known as “big pharma”. To be successful in fighting big pharma, injured clients must work with a skilled prescription drug attorney.
FDA Approval – The Requirement to Disclose Known Risks and Dangers
The FDA approval process is stringent, requiring drug manufacturers to present evidence that a drug is safe and effective for its intended use. Most people have seen prescription drug commercials with a long list of harmful side effects at the bottom of the screen. Despite an extensive list of negative side effects, the advertised drug still may be safe for a particular category of patients but not for others.
Black box warnings are the FDA’s way of saying that drug manufacturers have not done enough to warn of dangerous side effects and that the medical community and patients need to be aware of the risks of taking the drug. When approving a drug, the FDA trusts that the information being provided is accurate and that sufficient studies and drug trials have yielded all potential dangerous side effects.
The FDA May Not Have All of the Information About a Prescription Drug
Unfortunately, big pharma does not always fully disclose known risks and side effects they know about to the FDA, or they move too quickly and fail to undergo the necessary testing to discover the most severe side effects (or conceal unfavorable test results). Decades of mass tort litigation against big pharma for a variety of dangerous drugs has demonstrated that many drug makers tend to hide information they know about, all at the expense of billions in profit.
As such, the bottom line is that simply because a drug is FDA-approved does not mean the medication is free from dangers. Additionally, in the case of defective drugs (such as contamination of known carcinogens), the drugs may have been safe for their intended use upon approval but became dangerous when contaminated batches of the drug were manufactured and reached the patient population.
Holding Defendants Liable for Drug Injuries – Our Dangerous Drug Lawyer Explains
Generally, pharmaceutical companies and distributors are held liable in defective drug cases, which often overlap with dangerous drug cases, given that they are inherently dangerous. However, because not all dangerous drugs carry defects that apply to an entire patient population, additional defendants aside from drug manufactures may be at issue.
A list of potential defendants in a dangerous drug case that personal injury attorneys frequently takes on include, but may not be limited to, the following:
- Pharmaceutical Companies – Dangerous drug lawsuits inevitably involve a drug’s manufacturer when a patient’s injuries can be linked to an act or omission on behalf of the pharmaceutical company, such as failing to warn of dangerous side effects for certain patient populations, as should be identified in a drug’s label and the drug’s directions or instructions for use.
- Sales Representatives – Sales representatives who push a company’s drug may fail to inform doctors about the same risks and dangers omitted in the drug’s label. A failure to communicate adequate warnings to doctors means that doctors cannot educate their patients about the risks and dangers of a drug.
- Medical Providers – Although drug makers have the ultimate responsibility to ensure a drug’s dangers are adequately disclosed, medical doctors, physicians’ assistants, and pharmacists, among other medical professionals, have a duty to keep abreast of changes to a drug’s label, such as added warnings. For example, suppose the FDA has released information to medical providers indicating a drug now has a black box warning, and a failure to communicate such information to patients resulted in patient injuries. In that case, the prescribing medical provider may be found liable.
Our Prescription Drug Lawyer Can Help Identify Dangerous Drug Injuries
The nature and extent of harmful drug injuries depend on the intended use of the drug at issue, a patient’s medical history, and whether a patient knew a drug’s dangers. Examples of debilitating injuries that have been linked to dangerous drugs include, but are certainly not limited to, the following:
- Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) – SJS is a painful rash that may leave permanent scarring that has been linked to multiple medications, including Lamictal/Lamotrigine, Tegretol, Risperdal, and Mobic, among others.
- Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) – TD is a Parkinson’s-like extrapyramidal disorder in which a patient suffers from involuntary mouth, face, arm, or leg movements. The condition is permanent and requires additional medication to alleviate symptoms. TD has been linked to the use of Reglan/Metoclopramide and Risperdal, among others.
- Various Cancers – In the context of dangerous drugs that have proven to be defective due to contamination, numerous cancers have been linked to contaminants found in many medications, including, among others, Zantac, Losartan, and Valsartan.
- Excessive Internal Bleeding – Internal bleeding can be deadly if not caught early and treated. All blood thinners can be extremely dangerous if not appropriately prescribed and/or if drug manufacturers do not properly warn about known side effects. Blood thinners that have been linked to dangerous internal bleeding include, but are not limited to, Coumadin/Warfarin, Xarelto, Pradaxa, Eliquis, Lovenox, and Heparin.
Because the pharmaceutical drug industry (both prescription and over the counter drugs) rakes in billions each year, drugs that are not adequately tested and studied to reveal the most serious dangers associated with taking them will continue to enter the marketplace.
Even if a drug is considered safe for MOST patients, drug makers still have a duty to take all appropriate measures to identify when a drug may be an unsafe product and what patient population should avoid taking it.
Valuing a Plaintiff’s Injuries – Understanding Damages in Drug Injury Claims
Filing a lawsuit or seeking to be included in a large settlement (when filing a case may be unnecessary) is an extensive process that requires an evaluation of the facts as well as the damages a patient has suffered because of a prescription medication.
Examples of damages, which are identifiable harms that must be proven at trial, include the following:
- Physical and mental pain and suffering, which are considered non-economic damages;
- Present and future medical expenditures for hospital stays, testing/imaging, doctors’ visits, mental health treatment, and physical therapy, among others, that are incurred as a direct result of a dangerous drug;
- Present and future lost wages and the loss of chance of working in the future when injuries are substantial enough to cause permanent disability; and
- Funeral expenses, in cases where injuries are fatal.
Damages are unique to each case, even if their cause is the same across a large patient population. For example, a drug reaction, such as SJS or TD, may be mild for some patients and severe for others. In such cases, patients with a more severe reaction will have greater damages. Our seasoned prescription drug attorney will seek all potential damages to ensure defendants are held responsible when their conduct leads to significant injuries.
Why You Need to Work with a Dangerous Drug Lawyer
Dangerous drug cases may involve one defendant or involve multiple defendants, depending on the alleged conduct. For example, if a drug maker and a physician are both at fault for causing a patient’s injuries, legal representation must name both defendants in one lawsuit, given the injuries involve the same set of facts.
Whether a drug manufacturer and/or a physician is liable for a patient’s injuries is difficult to determine without the assistance of a legal professional. A patient may want to blame their doctor when all liability should be placed on the manufacturer of a dangerous drug. On the flip side, a patient may love his or her doctor and only want to blame a drug manufacturer when the doctor caused or contributed to the cause of the patient’s injuries.
Without discussing the merits of a potential case and all legal options with a dangerous or defective drugs lawyer, potential clients may not have a solid understanding of their rights and whether they have an opportunity to seek fair compensation for their suffering.
Discussing the Statute of Limitations with Your Drug Injury Attorney
Waiting too long to discuss defective drug injuries with a skilled attorney can be detrimental to a potential legal claim. First, if a patient waits until AFTER a statute of limitation expires to file a lawsuit or reach out to a lawyer, it is too late with few exceptions. Second, waiting too long to speak with a lawyer runs the risk of misremembering facts as memories fade over time.
Additionally, waiting too long to seek medical attention for defective pharmaceutical injuries can make it difficult to link the injuries to the ingestion of a particular pharmaceutical product. A delay in treatment would lead to a delayed diagnosis, which in turn would lead to an injured patient reaching out to a prescription drug lawyer much later.
Therefore, anyone who becomes ill or suffers injuries following ingestion of a prescription or OTC drug should immediately seek medical attention to determine whether the drug is to blame. Based on a medical professional’s findings and a patient’s diagnosis, the patient would have a better idea of whether seeking the legal advice of a dangerous prescription drug attorney is warranted.
Dangerous Drug FAQs
How do dangerous drugs get into hospitals, doctor’s offices and pharmacies?
Unfortunately, while patients and healthcare providers should be able to rely on drug companies to adequately test their products and refrain from selling drugs that present serious risks, they cannot. Drug companies routinely market and sell defective medications, and they often do so knowing of the risks involved. The FDA approval process isn’t adequate to identify all potential risks, and in many cases, drug companies can sidestep the most rigorous FDA approval requirements by applying for “fast track” status.
What are some examples of dangerous drugs?
There are far too many dangerous drugs to list them all. Here are some examples of drugs that are currently subject to recalls and/or litigation:
- Belviq and Belviq XR
- Byetta
- Janumet
- Januvia
- Revatio
- Taxotere
- Viagra
- Victoza
- Zantac
Again, these are just examples. If you have concerns related to any drug you have received from your healthcare provider or pharmacy, you should see your doctor and consult with a lawyer about your legal rights.
How much can I recover through a dangerous drug lawsuit?
The amount you can recover through a dangerous drug lawsuit depends on your individual circumstances. Generally speaking, patients and families can recover the maximum compensation for their financial and non-financial losses—and it is up to them to prove how much they are entitled to recover. When you hire a lawyer to file a dangerous drug lawsuit, your prescription drug attorney will thoroughly assess your legal rights and determine how much compensation to seek on your behalf.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a dangerous drug claim against a drug company?
It does not cost anything out-of-pocket to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit against a drug company. Our firm handles all dangerous drug claims on a contingency fee basis. This means that we do not charge any upfront or monthly fees or costs, and we only collect a fee and recover our expenses when we help our clients win just compensation. If your claim is unsuccessful for any reason, you will owe us nothing.
Can I switch lawyers after filing a dangerous drug lawsuit?
Yes, you can switch lawyers after filing a dangerous drug lawsuit if you are dissatisfied with your legal representation. Dangerous drug cases are complex, and some law firms, unfortunately, take on cases that they are not well-equipped to handle. If you believe that your law firm could (and should) be doing a better job, we invite you to schedule a free consultation at Searcy Denney. Our experienced attorneys will examine the current status of your case and provide an honest assessment of whether we think it makes sense for you to hire another law firm.
Can Searcy Denney’s lawyers represent me regardless of where I live?
Yes, our firm represents individuals and families in dangerous drug cases throughout the United States. Regardless of where you live, if you believe you may have a claim against a drug manufacturer, we encourage you to speak with one of our product liability attorneys about your legal rights.
Can I file a defective drug claim on behalf of a family member?
It is possible to file a dangerous drug or defective drug claim on behalf of a family member in some circumstances. For example, parents can file claims on behalf of their children, and spouses can file claims when they lose their significant others due to fatal drug complications. Other family members can file claims in certain circumstances as well. Eligibility is governed by state law, and different states have different laws in this regard. If your child, spouse, parent or another family member has been harmed or killed by a dangerous drug, you should speak with a defective drug attorney to find out what options you have available.
What should I do if I took a drug that the drug company (or the FDA) has recalled?
If you took a drug that has been recalled, you should consult with your doctor. While some drug recalls involve serious health risks, others do not present significant concerns for most patients. If you experience adverse effects from a recalled drug, you should also speak with a lawyer about your legal rights.
What do I need to do in order to file a dangerous drug lawsuit?
To file a dangerous drug lawsuit, you will need to engage a law firm that handles these types of cases to represent you. There are several steps in the process, and you will need a team of experienced lawyers with proven results to fight for the financial compensation you deserve.
Contact Searcy Denney Today to Speak with a Prescription Drug Lawyer
Have you suffered injuries after taking a dangerous drug? If so, the drug’s manufacturer or your doctor may be to blame. Find out whether you have a potential legal claim by speaking with a qualified attorney.
Each dangerous drug lawyer and prescription drug lawyer at our firm has and continues to advocate for the rights of clients who have suffered drug injuries through no fault of their own. To receive a free case evaluation, contact our office today by calling (800) 780-8607 or by completing a case inquiry form on our website.