Oklahoma Injury Lawyer Blog

Recently, an Oklahoma woman filed a lawsuit against Zoloft in a federal court in Philadelphia. Her lawsuit, which is based on products liability, claims that the popular antidepressant caused serious birth defects to her child.

More specifically, Torrie Johnson alleges that the injection of Zoloft while she was pregnant caused her unborn son to suffer from various birth defects including "congenital endocrinal cushion defect, a heart murmur, congestive heart failure, failure to thrive and a general developmental delay." 

Zoloft is prescribed to treat conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer actually encouraged doctors to prescribe Zoloft to pregnant women, as well as those who are trying to conceive. Johnson alleges that Zoloft maker Pfizer was negligent in failing to warn that if pregnant woman inject Zoloft, congenital defects may occur in their fetuses. She further alleges that Zoloft was negligently and intentionally designed, manufactured, and distributed.

 

Pfizer never performed studies on the drug to determine whether it could be linked to birth defects. According to the complaint, "Had Pfizer engaged in appropriate pharmacovigilance, they would have been aware of the numerous cases of birth defects caused by Zoloft prior to the time Plaintiff was prescribed Zoloft."

After Karen Bartlett took a mild pain pill to treat pain in her shoulder, she developed a rare reaction to the drug, sulindac, which caused two-thirds of her skin to slough off. Bartlett had to spend two months in a hospital burn unit, and was even placed under a medically induced coma.

Bartlett later sued the company that manufactured the generic pill she took, Mutual Pharmaceutical Company. In her lawsuit, she claimed that the design of sulindac was dangerous and defective. When describing her experience at trial, her surgeon said Bartlett experienced "hell on earth."

The Supreme Court is now set to hear a case considering whether Mutual can in fact be held responsible for the injuries suffered by Bartlett. In a decision handed down two years ago, the Supreme Court found that consumers of generic drugs could sue their manufacturers only in limited circumstances. The court came to this conclusion after finding that "such companies did not have control over what warning labels said and therefore could not be sued for not alerting patients to the risks of taking their drugs."

Bartlett's case is different, however, because she is arguing that the drug itself is defective. Mutual argues that, because the company has no control over the drug's design, they cannot be held liable for its defects.

According to a recent lawsuit filed against the manufacturer of popular birth control pill, Yaz, a mother was forced to have her arm amputated after a blood clot caused by the drug caused the limb to die. The 32-year-old Oklahoman took the oral contraceptive for five years before the amputation occurred.

In 2012, after feeling a tingling in her left arm, the woman immediately went to the hospital. Despite her early detection that something was amiss, ischaemia had already set in, meaning that there was nothing the doctors could do to allow her to keep her arm. Ischaemia is a condition brought on by blood clots, which cause serious infections and tissue damage.

According to the woman, "I had no pulse at my wrist. The doctor found it faintly at my elbow and forearm. They took me to a room and started hooking me up to IVs. It was excruciating. I was feeling my hand dying. I was watching it turn black." She was further devastated to find out that her insurance, Medicaid and Sooner Care, would not cover a prosthetic arm.

The makers of Yaz are certainly not strangers to such lawsuits. Yaz has been the target of multiple lawsuits filed over ingredient drospirenone, which not only causes blood clots, but has even lead to death in some cases.

The FDA recently reported that people taking Actos (pioglitazone) for more than a year have an increased risk of bladder cancer. Two European countries have already banned the drug.

Talk with your doctor if you are taking Actos.