Bayer Now Facing 68 Trasylol Lawsuits

Los Angeles, CAA number of lawsuits have been filed against Bayer AG for the drug Trasylol that was used in patients undergoing heart bypass surgery from 1993 until it was voluntarily suspended by Bayer in November 2007. Before the drug was taken off of the market, there were 19 lawsuits worldwide claiming that the drug had injured or killed those who were administered it during their surgery.

One of those cases was of Joseph Randone who was a 52-year-old travel agent living in Long Island. He died on August 8, 2006 after battling kidney failure for the 8 months after his heart surgery. He had his legs amputated, was on dialysis, was fed through feeding tubes, and had machines helping him breathe.

Ten days after Joseph died the surgeon who performed his heart surgery showed his wife, Josephine, a story done on a study conducted on Trasylol that linked it to kidney failure. It was later that Bayer admitted that similar results from their own studies had been "mistakenly" hidden from the FDA. Since then, Josephine Randone has filed an $80 million lawsuit against Bayer AG for continuing to market the defective product and failure to warn the public.

So far, the company has been served with a total of 68 cases regarding Trasylol. One of the most recent cases is that of a 51-year-old Alabama woman who allegedly died from kidney failure that was the result of being given Trasylol during her surgery. The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the woman's estate in federal court in Columbus, Georgia. In addition to alleging that her death is the result of Trasylol, the suit is claiming that her death is the result of Bayer not warning that severe kidney damage and Trasylol are linked. If such a warning existed, perhaps she would not have been given the drug. The failure to warn is the primary claim in the Randone case.

However, despite the growing evidence that there is a link between Trasylol and kidney failure, the results are still inconclusive. Although tests have shown that those given Trasylol during surgery are 27% more likely to die within 10 years than when given an alternative, there are still other factors that must be looked at. Some of those factors are the fact that the patients administered Trasylol were quite ill, which could have had an impact on how they reacted to the drug.

According to Dr. Jerry Avorn who wrote the 2006 paper Dangerous Deception - Hiding the Evidence of Adverse Drug Effects, He states that a number of experts were concerned about Trasylol as soon as it was approved in 1993. He talks about a study conducted on coronary revascularization on 4374 patients. Those patients given Trasylol had a higher chance of encountering postoperative renal failure than those who were given the alternative. Those who had surgeries without complications also had a 55% higher chance of having a heart attack or heart failure and a 181% chance of having encephalopathy or stroke. After these results were made apparent, the FDA convened to reevaluate the drug.

New lawsuits continue to pop-up, more opinions regarding the use of Trasylol are developing, and more people are claiming to believe that their health problems are a result of the drug being used during their surgery. Many are still unaware if they were ever given Trasylol during their surgery, but time will certainly tell whether Trasylol was solely responsible and what the scope of the damage is if it is.