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A List of Drug Recalls

Breit, Drescher and Imprevento is the premier injury law firm in the Tidewater area of Virginia. With offices in downtown Norfolk, we are able to provide first rate legal counsel for injury victims in Virginia Beach, Hampton and Newport News. As long as we have been in practice, our focus has been helping Virginia injury victims receive the most compensation that we can possibly obtain for them. Part of our practice is in helping those who have been injured due to the use of unsafe prescription drugs. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the use of prescription drugs that were manufactured and marketed with little regard to your safety, contact the Norfolk, Virginia injury law firm of Breit, Drescher and Imprevento.

The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion dollar business. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. A big part of the reason that the human life span and our overall health have improved so much over the years is due to the amazing advances that the pharmaceutical industry has made. Infections that were considered lethal 100 years ago are remedied with a week’s worth of pills today. There are pills that successfully treat almost every conceivable illness and condition, both serious and relatively trivial.

But there is a dark side to the pharmaceutical industry, and every few years are so we are unfortunately given a good look at it. It is a seemingly endless cycle: A pharmaceutical company creates a drug, rushes it through testing, markets it aggressively, and a greater than average percentage of the people who take the drug end up dying or suffering an even greater illness from it. After enough of an uproar and more than a few lawsuits, the pharmaceutical companies recall the drug, settle their lawsuits (or lose them through verdicts,) and promise not to do it again. But they always do.

The reason for this behavior can be found in the first sentence in this essay. Pharmaceuticals are a billion dollar business. All of the pharmaceutical giants are in fierce competition with one another to be the first ones to get that new anti-depressant or antibiotic or anti-inflammatory or pain reliever patented and out on the market. If they are successful, they can hold onto that patent for ten years, which means billions of dollars worth of profits.

But to give you a reminder of the downside of this competitive streak, Breit, Drescher and Imprevento would like to give you a few examples of drugs that were rushed to market and just as suddenly withdrawn after more than a few people got hurt.

Duract: This was a powerful pain reliever that began to cause problems almost the moment it was introduced onto the market in July of 1997. It soon became clear that people who used the drug for more than ten days were suffering from liver problems. Before it was pulled from the shelves, Duract was linked to four users dying and eight users needing liver transplants.

Phenylpropanolamine: This was an ingredient that was used in non-prescription, over the counter medications, like cough syrup, cold medications and weight loss drugs. The fact that it was widely available to anyone who walked into a drug store made it even more dangerous. According to the FDA, this ingredient increased the danger of hemorrhagic stroke in women.

Posicor: This medication was supposed to lower your blood pressure, but it’s main problem was that when it became combined with other drugs, the effects could be lethal. There are several drugs that have that same problem, but Posicor was dangerous when it interacted with at least 26 other medications. Hardly anyone who took Posicor was only taking that drug alone.

Seldane: This was an antihistamine that was relatively harmless by itself, but on a few occasions it reacted badly with a certain class of antibiotics, leading to heart attacks and other serious cardiovascular problems.

Fen-Phen: This anti-obesity medication was extremely dangerous, as 31% of it’s users who were tested showed heart valve abnormalities.

Vioxx: This was an analgesic for arthritis sufferers that had a full scale recall in 2003 after it was linked to a series of strokes and heart attacks.

These recalled drugs serve as reminders that even drugs that get past the Food and Drug Administration approval process can cause serious medical problems in the very people that the drug was supposed to help.

If you or a loved one in the Tidewater, Virginia area has been injured due to the use of flawed prescription drugs, contact Breit, Drescher and Imprevento for a free legal consultation today.

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