› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
A group of parents have filed a lawsuit against the makers of Zoloft alleging the antidepressant caused their children severe birth defects. The lawsuit was filed in St. Clair County Circuit Court against Pfizer Inc.
Clinical trials testing experimental and currently marketed pharmaceutical drugs help determine the medication’s safety and efficacy. This information is vital to policy makers and doctors, who generally read about these studies in peer-reviewed medical journals. But only a fraction of data from these clinical trails is ever published, a travesty that both “distorts scientific record” and puts patients lives at risk, the British Medical Journal warns.
If you are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant, check your medications, says March of Dimes’ deputy medical director Diane M. Ashton, MD, in a recent article in The Safety Report. Some prescription drugs can cause a host of problems for both the developing fetus and the mother, including miscarriage, low birth weight, premature labor, placental abruption, fetal death, and even material death.
Parents of children with birth defects who were exposed to the antidepressant Zoloft during gestation are suing the drug maker claiming the mothers took the antidepressant only because they believed it to be a safe medication to take during pregnancy.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is setting aside another $3.5 billion to cover expenses linked to investigations over its antidepressant Paxil, and other medications. This brings the company’s reserve up to $6.4 billion for legal costs associated with its drugs.
When pharmaceutical companies receive reports that suggest a medication may cause birth defects, they should immediately inform the public. However, too often companies are swayed by rising profits and the fear of bad press and may withhold or cover up this information to protect themselves. It is the public that stands to suffer.
Did drug company Pfizer cover up evidence that its antidepressant Zoloft causes birth defects? Susan and James Hodge think so. Susan took Zoloft during her pregnancy and then delivered a baby who died 18 hours after birth from anencephaly, a neural tube birth defect in which a large portion of the brain is missing. The Hodges are suing Pfizer claiming the world’s largest drug company covered up studies that documented the drug was associated with the fatal side effect.
A Cleveland, Ohio, couple is suing the makers of the antidepressant Zoloft, alleging use of the drug during pregnancy caused their newborn baby to die shortly after birth from a serious birth defect of the brain and spinal cord. Susan and James Hodge filed the lawsuit against Pfizer and Cardinal Health in Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas, alleging the drug companies knew the antidepressant could cause fatal neural tube birth defects but covered up studies that documented the dangers.
About $1 billion has been paid out by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline to resolve “failure to warn” lawsuits over its popular antidepressant Paxil. The lawsuits include cases of birth defects, suicides, and addiction allegedly caused by the medication.
Pregnant women who take certain types of antidepressants are at greater risk for preterm delivery or other birth complications, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The findings add more fuel to the argument that antidepressants not be prescribed to pregnant women and women of childbearing age unless absolutely necessary.
