Medication Side Effects
The 5 Deadliest Prescription Drugs That Big Pharma Doesn’t Want You To Know About…
Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s shortening of the drug testing process, big pharmaceutical companies are racing to get drugs to market as quickly as possible. Drug sales bring in billions upon billions in profits every quarter, so if the companies can find a loophole to shorten the testing, they will exploit it. Unfortunately, the big pharma companies coldly calculate that, even should a costly recall occur because a drug turns out to be defective or deadly, the profits from the drug’s sales will almost always far exceed the costs of any settlement payouts for the deaths or injuries caused.
Here is a list of 5 prescription drugs known to have deadly or extremely harmful side effects. Despite their known dangers, surprisingly, many of these drugs are still being sold in the U.S. All of these drugs are the subject of pending lawsuits on behalf of those who have suffered death or injury from them. All of them have been subject to FDA mandates of either “black box” warnings (the FDA’s strongest warning), label changes, or manufacturer recalls. Yet somehow, in a testament to the powers of big pharma, the drugs are still being sold.
Killer Drug Number One: DARVON.
No one really knows how many people have fallen victim to Darvon. The drug has been causing deaths in the U.S. since the 1970’s when it was cited as the cause of 589 deaths and called “the most dangerous prescription drug in the U.S.” by Ralph Nader’s health research group. Darvon and its evil cousin Darvocet (both forms of Propoxyphene), became extremely popular painkillers prescribed to over 10 million people in the U.S. by 2009. US Drug Watch dog says: we cannot even begin to say how big of a deal the Darvon/Darvocet pain pill recalls are. We fear there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who have either had a heart attack or heart arrhythmia issues from these drugs. Banned in the United Kingdom in 2005, both Darvon/Darvocet were finally recalled in the U.S. on November 19, 2010 in compliance with a request by the FDA for its being linked to heart arrhythmias, and other side effects such as suicide, overdose and death.
Killer Drug Number Two: AVANDIA.
Avandia is a drug for the treatment of type-2 diabetes, linked to deadly side effects such as congestive heart failure, heart attacks and strokes. New England Journal of Medicine says its use “increases heart attack risk by 43%”. On September 23, 2010, the FDA placed severe restrictions on it, allowing it to be prescribed only as a last resort. In February 2011, manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, while still selling it in the U.S., implemented a label change, and paid, according to Bloomberg News, $250 million dollars to settle numerous claims of injury and death related to its use.
Killer Drug Number Three: YAZ/YASMINE.
Too Good To Be True? Yaz/Yasmine was launched in 2006, with a huge upbeat advertising blitz promoting it as a miraculous new birth control pill that had the added benefits of reducing acne, and reducing PMS. This made it enormously popular with teenagers who rushed to their doctors for prescriptions, and Yaz (formerlyYasmine; generic name Ocella) soon had a huge following. However, the problems rapidly began surfacing. The drug has been linked to over 50 deaths since its launch. Through early 2011, there have been over 4000 lawsuits related to its use filed in state and Federal courts. Young girls have died from blood clots, have been having strokes, and coming down with gall bladder disease. On September14, 2010, 18 year old Michelle Pfleger collapsed onto the ground on her way to college in North Carolina, dying shortly thereafter and pronounced dead at the hospital. She died of a blood clot, “pulmonary thromboemboli”, which was caused by her taking Yaz, according to her mother Joan Cummins. A 15 year old girl, Katie Ketner had her gall bladder removed. Susan Gallenos, a mother of two, only 4 weeks after starting to use Yaz, suffered a stroke and had to have part of her skull removed due to pressure on her brain. Other severe side effects include heart attacks and liver cancer.
The F.D.A. has made the drug’s manufacturer redo deceptive TV commercials and ordered the recall of 33,000 boxes of the drug in November 2009, due to defective manufacturing. Despite all these dangers, it is still on the market today.
Killer Drug Number Four: ACCUTANE.
Accutane is a popular acne treatment drug shown to have potentially deadly and dangerous side effects including depression, inflammatory bowel disease, and suicide. In 2009, its manufacturer Roche stopped selling it in the U.S. partly because of the large cost of defending lawsuits related to its use, with a reported $56 million dollars paid so far, and hundreds of additional suits pending.
Killer Drug Number Five: NUVARING.
This birth control device, used by over a million women worldwide, was first approved for sale in the U.S. in 2002. However, since then, it has been fraught with problems, as its use has been linked to almost half a dozen deaths, as well as a large number of life threatening blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. According to a lawsuit filed, six months after using Nuvaring, a 32 year old mother from New Jersey , Jackie Kelly Bozicev, suffered a seizure and died in the hospital emergency room from blood clots. Since last year, the number of lawsuits seeking compensation against Schering-Plough related to Nuvaring injuries has ballooned to over 300; yet the sales continue, with most people completely unaware of the risks.
If you or a loved one has suffered adverse consequences from taking one of these or another dangerous prescription drug, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Contact JD Law Group now by filling out the contact form located to the right of this page. You will receive a free consultation to learn about your legal rights.
You can also test your medication side effect I.Q. by taking the Medication Side Effects Trivia Quiz.
Source: Reed Wall’s Drug Recall Help blog. Part of this story is brought to you by the people behind Escozine, a natural cancer nutraceutical produced by Medolife.
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