Antidepressants: Know What They’re Winding You Up With

April 16th, 2010. By Kristine B

C’mon. You know you’ve seen that Pristiq ad once or twice—the one with that little wind-up doll (yes, the one with the circa-1970’s get-up that would drive any of us into a state of mild depression)—and you’ve thought to yourself, “Gee, I’ve had days when I kind of felt that way”. Admit it folks, you’ve been there—maybe not in mauve polyester, but you’ve been there.

Now, you may or may not have taken that thought to the next level: the “I need help” level. Most of us don’t. But if you have, you’ve most likely “talked to your doctor” as only “he can determine whether [fill in anti-depressant drug name here] is right for you”.

And if you’ve left your doctor’s office with a little slip of paper to be dropped off at the pharmacy, you may have been prescribed an SSRI, SNRI, NDRI or MAOI. Perhaps you’re feeling high as a kite on the hopes that you’ll be giddier than a glee club as soon as you get that scrip filled. But, take pause. For while you fantasize about your future mental state, do you really know what you’ve just been given?

What follows is a mini primer to the world of anti-depressants—and, as this is a legal news site, the links provided will lead you to information on safety concerns and some of the resulting litigation that’s gone on.

There are actually many different types of antidepressants. Not just the brand names, but the actual types of drugs themselves that work on different chemicals in the brain. Generally, antidepressants aim to reverse depressive symptoms and stabilize mood by increasing the amounts of certain chemicals that are found in the brain. The type of antidepressant depends on the chemicals being affected. 

Depression 

Although there is no one answer to the question, “What causes depression?” scientists believe that chemicals in the brain play a role in some forms of depression. The brain has several hundred types of chemical messengers—also called neurotransmitters—that send messages between brain cells. Of these, three neurotransmitters specifically are targeted by the various antidepressants, to different degrees. 

Serotonin is thought to play a role in controlling anxiety, mood, sleep, sexuality and appetite. 

Norepinephrine is thought to play a role in sleep and alertness and is also thought to play Read the rest of this entry »

Asbestos News Roundup: 4.15.10

April 15th, 2010. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of.

Asbestos Lawsuits

Charleston, WV: An asbestos-related lawsuit filed recently has named 61 companies as defendants. The two co-executrixes of the estate of Nelson Eugene Walker filed on behalf of Mr. Walker’s estate. Walker was diagnosed with asbestos mesothelioma in July 2009 and died from complications related to the illness on November 23, 2009, not quite four months after his diagnosis. 

Debra L. Church and Carol J. Boyd, the executrixes, allege that Mr. Walker was exposed to asbestos-containing products during the course of his work for the various companies. The defendants are being sued for negligence, contaminated buildings, breach of expressed/implied warranty, strict liability, intentional tort, conspiracy, misrepresentations and post-sale duty to warn, according to the suit. 

The companies named as defendants in the suit are 3M Company; A.K. Steel Corporation; A.W. Chesterton; Ajax Magnethermic Corporation; Allied Chemical Corporation; Amdura Corporation; Aurora Pump Company; Bucyrus International, Inc.; Catalytic, Inc.; Caterpillar, Inc.; Certainteed Corporation; Cleaver-Brooks Company, Inc.; Columbus McKinnon Corporation; Cooper Industries, LLC; Crane Co.; Elliott Turbo Machinery Company; Flowserve FSD Corporation; Flowserve US, Inc.; Foseco, Inc.; Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation; Garlock, Inc.; General Electric Company; Goulds Pumps; Honeywell International, Inc.; Howden Buffalo, Inc.; IMO Industries, Inc.; Industrial Holdings Corporation; Ingersoll-Rand Company; Insul Company, Inc.; ITT Corporation; Mallinckrodt, Inc.; McJunkin Red Man Corporation; Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Morgan Engineering, Inc.; Nacco Materials Handling Group, Inc.; Nagle Pumps, Inc.; Nitro Industrial Coverings, Inc.; Oglebay Norton Company; Ohio Valley Insulating Company, Inc.; Owens-Illinois, Inc.; P&H Mining Equipment, Inc.; Pettibone/Traverse Lift, LLC; Premier Refractories, Inc.; Rapid American Corporation; Riley Power, Inc.; Rockwell Automations, Inc.; Square D Company; State Electric Supply Company; Sunbeam Corporation; Tasco Insulations, Inc.; the F.D. Lawrence Electric Company; the Manitowoc Company, Inc.; UB West Virginia, Inc.; United Engineers & Constructors, Inc.; Viacom, Inc.; Vimasco Corporation; Washington Group International; West Virginia State Electric Supply; and Yale Materials Handling Corporation. (WV Record.com) 

Jefferson County, TX: Twelve companies are facing an asbestos-related lawsuit brought by Augustine Aranda, who was recently diagnosed with malignant asbestos-related disease. Mr. Aranda had Read the rest of this entry »

Federal Regulators Must Share Some Blame for Toyota Recall Delays

April 15th, 2010. By Hunter West

Much has been made about the delays attributed to Toyota for acting on safety deficiencies with its vehicles—delays that didn’t appear to affect consumers in Europe and Canada but impacted those in the US. And while James Lentz, the president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA, stated in Congress in February that he did not know of reports of sticking pedals in Europe until the month prior (January, 2010), documents showed that engineers in the US were told about the sticking pedals as early as April, 2009. 

That said, US safety regulators—which have been famously holding Toyota’s feet to the fire throughout the recall process—couldn’t escape blame either. If Toyota is to blame for dragging its feet, so too did federal safety regulators. 

Case in point: according to the April 11th issue of The New York Times, officials from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) met in Washington to discuss the accelerator pedals and floor mats issue—an issue linked to a fiery crash in California the previous month that killed four members of one family. At the meeting, the agency also pressed the automaker to announce just how it intended to fix the problem. 

Toyota made that announcement on November 25^th. However the meeting took place September 28^th. Two months went by before the announcement was made. 

There are those who feel the agency could have pressed Toyota to act sooner, or at the very least keep up the pressure. 

Recent federal fines levied against Toyota cite the breach in protocol that requires, by law, an automotive manufacturer to report a product safety deficit to federal regulators within a handful of business days. And yet while the Transportation Secretary was vowing to hold Toyota’s “feet to the fire” for delays in bringing the US into a loop that had already included Canada and Europe months earlier, the question remains why the NHTSA allowed Toyota so much lead time up to November 25^th. 

Since then there has been a steady diet of sensational media headlines and stories, congressional hearings and angry congressmen playing the role of protector to the American consumer. Toyota missed the deadline. Toyota allegedly withheld information. Toyota’s feet must be held to the fire for delays. Hardly a day has passed without some story on Toyota accompanied by a talking head from Washington crying foul. 

But for two months, Washington appeared to stand at the sidelines while Toyota sorted all this out. 

Says Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Representative Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “The bottom line is that both industry and regulators failed.” 

And in so doing, the regulators appear to be talking from both sides of their mouths.

Pleading Ignorance: How’d I get Sucked into a Lawnmower Class Action?

April 15th, 2010. By Kristine B

This one’s going out to all who asked the question, “How the heck did I get involved in this lawn mower lawsuit?”…

LawyersAndSettlements.com has received an overwhelming response to our post about the gas-powered lawn mower settlement. Makes you realize how many of us are out there every weekend preening those lush green carpets. So the response was great—and we’re glad we could not only tell everyone about the settlement, but also that we were able to help with your questions.

It brings up something about class action lawsuits though: most of us don’t really know much about ’em until some little postcard or letter shows up in the mail telling you that “You may be entitled to…” We realized that a number of you may wonder just how the heck a class action starts and how it all works. So, in this week’s Pleading Ignorance, I’ll try to help you understand it a bit more. 

FYI, we always have a class action FAQ here, but for a little more explanation, read on…

Class action lawsuits are filed when a large number of people have similar complaints. To make life easier for the plaintiffs and for the courts, the complaints are combined into one class action lawsuit. By combining the complaints, the courts hear all of the concerns at the same time and one settlement applies to all parties involved.

It’s a fair bet, too, that if so many folks have an issue with something, there’s more out there that have the issue as well; by filing a class action, every individual who is potentially a part of the “class” for the lawsuit is, technically, represented by the lawsuit. That why a lot of you asked how the heck you got selected for the lawn mower lawsuit settlement…that’s how: you bought one, you’re in. The class action has your back, so to speak—if you want it to. If you think you have a better chance of suing on your own, you can opt out of the class action and retain the right to sue on your own. 

Every class action lawsuit has a representative; a plaintiff who represents all members of the class. The representative is the person named in the lawsuit and may also be referred to as the lead plaintiff Read the rest of this entry »

Regulatory Agencies Up Against Big Pharma and Disease Mongering

April 13th, 2010. By janem

The Food and Drug Administration’s mandate is to protect and promote public health through regulation of pharmaceuticals, etc. But critics question the agency’s lack of attention to prescription drug promotion and disease mongering- the latter described as “widening the boundaries of treatable illness in order to expand markets for those who sell and deliver treatments,” which might in part account for the increasing drug litigation in the US…

And the US, unlike other countries, allows unbranded disease-mongering advertising, the TV ad that doesn’t come right out and mention the drug: instead it ends with “patients are advised to see their doctor”, maybe with a happy family, blue skies and kittens in the background.

In 2004, the FDA stated that unbranded adverts that are perceptually similar or otherwise linked to branded adverts are subject to FDA regulation, as are unbranded adverts by the manufacturer of the only drug in its class. But apart from that, the FDA has no authority over the content of disease-oriented advertising. Obviously, a drug is only worth considering if potential benefits outweigh potential harm. But with ads targeting healthy people, are there added benefits? Where is the FDA?

The FDA vs Other Regulatory Bodies

Worldwide, regulatory agencies have differed in their response to manufacturers’ bids to market their drugs and the major gap appears to be the FDA vs everyone else.

The World Health Organization argues that governments should take a more active role in regulating disease-awareness campaigns to prevent misleading information from reaching the public. The Europeans state that advertising of medicinal products “must encourage the rational use of the product and may not be misleading”. And Canada’s Food and Drugs Act prohibits advertising of a drug that is “false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, merit or safety. ” But the FDA seems to lag and fails to treat regulation of drug promotion as a public health concern. Especially when compared with Therapeutics Initiative.

The University of British Columbia’s Therapeutics Initiative comprises a group of researchers who provide independent evidence-based advice about prescription drugs. “I cannot speak too highly of the Therapeutics Initiative,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, a member of the drug safety committee of the FDA and head of the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

Not only has the TI saved lives, it has also saved British Columbia taxpayers a lot of money. For example, TI researchers warned Canadians about the arthritis drug, Vioxx, before it was removed from the market for safety reasons. TI assessed the diabetes drug Avandia and cited side effects such as heart attack and angina. As a result, the drug was prescribed much less in British Columbia than the US.

TI has been hailed as “a critical counterbalance to the most profitable industry in the world.”

And with the FDA’s decision to speed up the drug approval process, access to accurate clinical trial information and systematic drug reviews that the TI provides is even more important: increasingly drug manufacturers withhold critical data from the public, resulting in misleading information and potential harm.

Forms of Disease Mongering Used to Expand Drug Sales

• Promotion of anxiety about future ill-health in healthy individuals
• Inflated disease prevalence rates
• Promotion of aggressive drug treatment of milder symptoms and diseases
• Introduction of questionable new diagnoses-such as PMDD or social anxiety disorder-that are hard to distinguish from normal life
• Redefinition of diseases in terms of surrogate outcomes (i.e., osteoporosis becomes a disease of low bone density rather than fragility fractures)

Canadians argue that it is necessary to have an independent body such as the TI to analyze drugs so that they can be treated appropriately, rather than American drug recommendations that are often driven by the drug companies. I wonder how many Americans know about the TI?  But TI might have a short shelf life if pharmaceutical companies have their way. In 2007,  a pharmaceutical task force-INCLUDING SEVERAL REPS OF THE DRUG INDUSTRY-called for an end to the TI’s role in approving drugs (or not). Health critics charged that this decision was putting private interest ahead of public interest-a criticism often thrown at the FDA. Let’s hope that the TI doesn’t get swallowed up by big pharma, like its American counterpart.