GlaxoSmithKline, which is the maker of Avandia, have had to pay a reported $60 million dollar to resolve the 700 lawsuits that were filed because of Avandia side effects people weren’t aware about. As a result, each plaintiff is receiving $86,000. People have generally filed lawsuits based on different side effects that they’ve experienced without the company telling anyone. It’s noted that the company knew about other side effects that would happen but didn’t even list them on the product.
Avandia and Heart Attacks
It’s said that from the lawsuit, Avandia is to blame for over 200,000 heart attacks and even deaths from people who were prescribed to take Avandia. The concerns about people with heart risks taking the pill has caused sales in general to decline rapidly since it first came to the US in 1998. For awhile, doctors couldn’t necessarily figure out why the heart attacks seemed so sudden for people especially since they had no heart issue previously.
Failure To Report Other Side Effects
The most important reason the class action lawsuits were filed against GlaxoSmithKline is because of the fact that they withheld information about other severe side effects that users would need to look out for. Because of that, doctors were prescribing the medicine not knowing that people with certain health risks could potentially die. Doctors have even helped some of the family members by testifying against the company in explaining had they known this would happen, they would’ve never prescribed it to the person based upon their risks due to their heart, weight, etc.
Avandia Related Injuries
Another factor within the lawsuit was that people were experiencing injuries after they had started taking the medicine. It was testified that the injuries wouldn’t have had been there had they had not started taking Avandia. The injuries were also kept away from the public and doctors as it was something that the parent company knew about. Some people have reported feeling weak within their jobs and not being able to carry out their job functions as they use to because of the fact that Avandia was weakening their body system.
Untrusted Company
Even today there are still some lawsuits being made by the company due to people still having complications from them. Their sales have tremendously fallen because of how they’ve handled the issues and how they have kept information away from the public and even the doctors. Most people don’t feel safe taking the product, even if they don’t have any health issues at all. There have been tons of people who were looking for ways to get the product banned from the US just based on the big lawsuit in which the settlement amount still didn’t seem enough for some people. Doctors usually try to find alternatives and use Avandia as a last resort, with fear that there may be something else that could be brought on from the product that the medical industry has yet to know about.