Product Liability Lawyer Blog

Concerns regarding defective drugs in New England are heightened, following Maine’s recent passage of a law that allows residents there to import prescription drugs from overseas.

The policy’s staunch critics include the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s of America, the Maine Pharmacy Association and big-name drug manufacturers such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. The problem, they say, is that when drugs are imported from overseas, quality control standards may not apply.

Part of it, of course, is that, undoubtedly, cheaper prescription drugs from other countries cut into profits. But our defective drug lawyers in Boston believe these firms do have a point.
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A new leukemia drug hit the market last year – and approval was promptly suspended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amid concerns that it caused the potential for life-threatening blood clots and a severe restriction of the blood vessels.

The drug, known as Iclusig and ponatinib, has reportedly been linked to a number of fatal strokes and heart attacks, as well as incidents of blindness and a loss of blood to the extremities severe enough to warrant amputation. Our Boston product liability attorneys have learned that in some instances, death resulted less than two weeks after patients started their prescriptions.

Those who died were in their 20s and were not at any heightened risk for heart disease.
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Acetaminophen is far and away considered one of the safest drugs on the market. It’s the active ingredient in Tylenol, and tens of millions of people take this popular pain reliever and fever reducer every week with no major problems.

But did you know that over the last 10 years, some 1,500 Americans have died after accidentally consuming too much acetaminophen? That breaks down to about 150 cases a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new series of reports indicate the in large quantities, particularly when taken in combination with alcohol, the drug can significantly damage and possibly even decimate the liver.
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While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration offers its stamp of approval on a wide range of medications and treatments each year, that green light is no guarantee that a drug won’t be harmful.

A recent annual report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices revealed that there was a 16 percent increase from 2011 to 2012 in the number of domestic reports to the FDA of serious, disabling and fatal adverse events associated with the use of therapeutic drugs.

Startlingly, the research firm also reports there was a nearly 48 percent increase in the number of patient fatalities arising from adverse reactions to approved drugs – from about 31,000 in 2011 up to nearly 45,500 in 2012.
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