Drugs/Medical Archive

Should Doctors Tell Patients the Truth to Avoid Malpractice? You Decide

May 3rd, 2011. By AbiK

We get a lot of interesting comments and emails at LawyersandSettlements.com. Why, just yesterday we received an email from someone who claimed to be the “real” Dolly—yes, as in the cloned sheep from 1996, who—I might add—is widely reported to have passed on to that great pasture in the sky in 2003, and apparently on view in all her taxodermic glory at the Museum of Scotland. But no, we have an actual human who’s emailed us and claims to be Dolly incarnate. Who knew?

Be that as it may, we do also receive some more thought-provoking comments—like this one that came in today from Steven.

Honesty may not always be best in a potential malpractice case. Check out this 2 minute video on YouTube showing an actual case history.

Steven claims that honesty may not be the best policy for doctors to follow when the potential for a medical malpractice case is at hand. Steven was responding to an article that appeared on LawyersandSettlements recently titled, “Doctor Says Honesty Is the Key to Expert Witness Testimony“.

I’ve saved you the trek over to youtube, so his video clip is above. Let us know what you think.

Tags: Doctors, medical malpractice
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | 1 Comment »

Hot Potato Diet Drug Alli Up for Grabs, but Who’s Buying?

April 29th, 2011. By AbiK

On the heels of consumer watchdog group, Public Citizen, calling for a ban of diet drug Alli, we see that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)—makers of well-known type 2 and last-resort diabetes drug, Avandia—has chosen to offload the once golden weight loss wonder.

Alli Sales Drop

Apparently, Alli is not so golden anymore. GSK just reported on their first quarter earnings for 2011, and Alli sales were not exactly stellar. Case in point, Alli sales in Europe were down £14 million in first quarter 2011 vs prior year. And in the US? That’s a bit more ambiguous, though GSK does report “The USA grew 1% to £241 million, with strong performances from Sensodyne, Tums, Poligrip, Biotene, and Breathe offsetting lower sales of alli and Aquafresh.” Translation: Alli pooped in the US (no pun intended, see below).

Ok, financials are one thing—but there’s more to the Alli story than declining sales. And it begs the question, why would Sanofi-Aventis—if rumors are true—be considering buying Alli from GSK?

Alli Safety Record

Let’s recall that Alli was only approved for sale in 2007. That’s not all that long ago. Then by April, 2009 Alli was the subject of conversation with the CDER Drug Safety Oversight Board—over concerns of an Alli link to possible severe liver injury.

In August, 2009 the FDA sent out its Early Communication to alert consumers that Alli was indeed under review for severe liver injury risk.

By May, 2010 the FDA announced a revised label for Alli (and Xenical) that would include a warning about “rare reports of sever liver injury”.

Fast forward to Public Citizen’s call for a ban on Alli this month—which draws attention to some digging consumer watchdog group did over at the FDA’s AERS database that found Alli to “have been associated with 47 cases of acute pancreatitis and 73 cases of kidney stones”.

And Those Other Alli Side Effects…

In addition to being linked to serious liver injury, Alli is not exactly a dieter’s dream. We covered Alli’s rather gross side effects in an earlier story—and since then it’s not hard to find Alli users online who apparently have no shame in sharing stories of “oily orange stuff” dripping down their legs. GSK themselves recommended wearing dark clothes or carry additional clothes in case of an accident.

Seriously—possible Alli side effects reportedly include fatty or oily stools, oily spotting, intestinal gas with discharge, an increased number of bowel movements, or poor bowel control.

So given Alli’s recent sales decline, the potential for more serious adverse events to occur while taking Alli, the outcry for a ban on Alli—and the fact that it’s really not a pleasant way to lose weight—why would anyone want to buy the Alli brand?

Well, regardless of whether it’s Sanofi-Aventis or someone else, I hope their business plans include cross-promotion with Depends and Subtle Butt…

Tags: Alli, diet pills, Diet Plan, FDA, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, orlistat-side-effects-orlistate-liver-damage-alli, Public Citizen, Sanofi Aventis, weight loss
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | No Comments »

The 61.5 Fat-free Wheat Thins Diet (aka the HCG Diet)

April 22nd, 2011. By AbiK

That caught your eye, huh?

And it’s not all that far off, except it is carbs. Not far off, that is, from the much-in-the-media HCG diet. See, along with the so-called weight-loss miracle HCG injections comes a 500-calorie per day, uh, diet. To those of you who’ve picked up a pack of Suzy-Q’s lately (880 calories per pack) that 500 may seem a tad bit miniscule—though it is the equivalent of 61.5 fat-free Wheat Thins. Your average apple weighs in at about 72 calories.

You’re getting the picture—500 calories is paltry. I’m sure if I decided to only ingest 500 calories per day and not even exercise—hell, who’d have the strength?—I’d probably lose a few extra pounds. Enough to have “waif” attached to my name. To put this in further perspective, most references to the average daily caloric intake per capita in the Congo seem to hover in the 1,300 -1,400/day range. Now envision consuming about a third of that. You betcha you’d lose some serious weight—if you could hold yourself back from desperately grabbing the Doritos—or just some plain lettuce!— first.

So what’s the big deal with this HCG diet?

Most folks—paticularly women going through IVF—know HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, as the “trigger shot” administered just before retrieval to stimulate ovulation (aka, the “butt shot”). But HCG has become increasingly popular for weight loss—off label. How’s that happen? An article over at Discovery Health provides some background:

“It was during research in the 1950s when one doctor, A.T.W. Simeons, noticed that boys being treated with hCG for underdeveloped gonads were also able to lose excess weight by eating much less without any accompanying hunger pangs. His interest in hCG soon shifted to its potential as a diet aid, and he published a paper touting its effects, as well as developing a dietary regimen for use of the drug as a weight-loss tool.”

Weight loss? Without hunger pangs? Sounds like a Jenny Craig-Weight Watchers-Lean Cuisine-heading toward gastric bypass addict’s answered prayer, no? And for some, it apparently has been. For a commenter, Toni, at Discovery Health, the HCG diet resulted in this:

“I did the hcg diet with great results. I did it 3 times and I lost 80 lbs. My husband lost 120 Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: diet drugs, HCG, HCG Diet, weight loss
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | 4 Comments »

Food Safety Alert: The Problem With Meat Glue

April 21st, 2011. By Hunter West

Oh, you haven’t heard of meat glue? The food industry loves the stuff—and for good reason. Anything that would allow the morphing of a bucket of meat bits, like stewing beef for example, into what looks like a Grade A steak and commands a Grade A price at the counter, is akin to manna from heaven. 

To the untrained eye (meaning, you and me), it’s impossible to tell the difference. It looks like a steak. It grills like a steak. It tastes like a steak. But it’s not a steak, but rather chunks of meat that in a previous era would have been sold as stewing beef for a lot less than the kind of price a steak commands. But mix in some meat glue, roll it up and after six hours in the refrigerator, out comes a gelled roll that can be sliced into a series of lovely-looking, boneless steaks. 

The potential for fraud is obvious. Beyond the deception, however, why did the European Union ban meat glue last year? 

First, the back-story of what meat glue is. In fact, meat glue is actually an enzyme derived from thrombin and fibrogen, which is obtained from the blood plasma of swine and cattle. This is the stuff that causes blood to clot—and it also does a spiffy job, it turns out, of knitting small bits of meat together to appear like more expensive-looking steaks. 

Is meat glue harmful? Well, the European Food Safety Authority gave meat glue a positive safety opinion in 2005, only to ban it five years later. And a butcher participating in a story Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: EU, fibrogen, Food Poisoning, meat additive, meat glue, thrombin
Posted in Defective Products, Drugs/Medical, Food Illness | 2 Comments »

Harsh Reality: Elective Cosmetic Surgery vs Medical Malpractice

April 6th, 2011. By AbiK

Just yesterday, we posted about Marilyn Leisz—the New Jersey woman who underwent an operation to fix an earlier operation and a congenital defect—on her eyes. Actually, MSNBC reports that she has had 30 surgeries to correct the problem. But the corrective procedures have left her unable to close her eyes. 

So, Leisz filed a medical malpractice suit against her cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Paul Parker, and was just awarded $115,000. And she’s not happy about it. Who can blame her? After all, the amount seems a bit small given that she has to use a special gel and vaporizer to keep her eyes moist, and she has to sleep with a mask at night to prevent her from scratching her corneas. And she is at risk for blindness—listen to her describe her plight in the above msnbc.com video.

One has to wonder—how did the jury figure out $115,000? as in only $115,000?

Leisz said her life has been thrown into shambles. “I feel like my whole life has been stolen from me,” she told NBC News. “Your eyesight affects everything that you do.”

The simple tasks the rest of us take for granted every day—things like showering, or even sleeping—have become major events requiring a fair amount of preparation for Leisz.

While it’s easy to question why Leisz may have needed (and willingly undergone) some 30 procedures, the interesting part of this is how a cosmetic surgery malpractice case plays out in the legal arena. At least in this instance, it seems as though there’s a bit of a “well, she should’ve known” or “heck, she’s the one who signed on for it” attitude—and maybe at times Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cosmetic surgery, Dr Paul Parker, Elective Surgery, marilyn leisz, medical malpractice
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | 6 Comments »