Washington - Government attorneys appointed by the Bush Administration have been supporting GlaxoSmithKline in a number of courts across the country in an effort to convince the courts that lawsuits filed by victims of Paxil-induced injuries should be dismissed before ever making it to a jury.
In fact, the Administration has spent a massive amount of tax dollars filing amicus briefs on behalf of just about every drug maker involved in litigation in an attempt to get the lawsuits filed by private citizens thrown out of court.
The government claims that, once a drug and the warnings on its label are approved by the FDA, claims alleging injuries caused by a company's failure to warn about a risk not listed on the label are preempted.
The Bush Administration says preemption applies even when a company (1) continues to sell a drug when a risk is known; (2) fails to warn when new risks are discovered; (3) fails to send letters notifying prescribing doctors of a known risk, and (4) fails to disclose a known risk to the FDA during the approval process, or anytime for that matter. In essence, if the FDA doesn't make the companies warn, they're off the hook.
If the Administration is successful in obtaining immunity for these drug companies, taxpayers will be left to pay not only the costs of medical care for all persons injured by drugs but also the life-long care for persons disabled by a product.
If Americans realized what was happening, there is no way they would approve of their tax dollars being spent to help the richest industry on the planet deprive fellow citizens of their right to a jury trial.
The typical brief against a plaintiff is filed by an army of government attorneys and will include an Assistant Attorney General, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a United States Attorney, an Assistant United States Attorney, two Appellate Attorneys from the Department of Justice, the FDA's Chief Counsel, and the Deputy Chief Counsel, Associate Chief Counsel, and General Counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Glaxo takes things one step further by submitting government amicus briefs that were filed in other cases (not just Paxil cases) and re-files them in virtually every one of the cases filed against the company in order to bolster its preemption arguments.
In O'Neal v GlaxoSmithKline, a case involving the suicide of a 13-year-old Sacramento, California boy, Benjamin Bratt, Glaxo recently used the Bush Administration's preemption policy to argue that the child's family should not be allowed to sue Glaxo for failing to warn about the suicide risk.
Benjamin committed suicide on February 14, 1997 by hanging himself. His parents, Terri O'Neal and Barry Bratt, filed a lawsuit alleging that, despite knowledge of suicide risks associated with Paxil prior to 1997, Glaxo concealed the information, failed to warn doctors, the medical community, and the public and all the while the company promoted the drug as safe and effective for children.
In the lawsuit, the Bratt Family alleged that Glaxo should have warned Benjamin's doctor about the suicide risk both through the label and through other means, such as promotion, advertising, and "Dear Doctor" letters.
On January 30, 2008, federal judge, Frank Damrell, in the US District Court, Eastern District of California, dismissed the case and ruled that all of the family's claims were preempted. The Bratt family has asked the court to reconsider the ruling. They believe the judge committed error in essentially holding that a drug that is not safe for adults is nonetheless safe for children until proven otherwise.
The family argues that adult clinical trials conducted by Glaxo as far back as 1989 showed an 8 times increased risk of suicidal behavior for Paxil users compared to patients receiving a placebo, but that Glaxo manipulated the data to obscure the risk, and then published the false data in medical journals and articles throughout the 1990's.
In his ruling, Judge Damrell held that, even if GSK had clinical trial data prior to 1997 that showed an increased risk of suicidality in adults, that data was not sufficient to prove the risk extended to children using Paxil.
The Court held that, because the first clinical trial of Paxil with children did not conclude until 1998, Glaxo could not have known about the suicide risks with kids before that date.
During the January 18, 2008 oral argument on the preemption motion, Judge Damrell himself pointed out that a finding of an increased risk of suicidality in adults would logically apply to children. He specifically stated:
After fighting one of the biggest personal battles of my life, the battle to regain personal control FROM antidepressants, I finally broke free. The countless instances of damage done to "the public" by the over-prescription and misuse of antidepressants (probably prescribed drugs in general) in incontestable. Do you doubt it? Sit in a Dr.'s office and watch the endless parade of cute"former cheerleaders" (male and female) and "Barbies" pushing pills and open your eyes. Research, if you will, the recent publication from none other than "The New England Journal of Medicine" debunking the efficacy of most of the HEAVILY prescribed (over-prescribed?) poison. It should be an eye opener for any thinking person
Political payback to BIG PHARMA, lobbying in the form of such protection from prosecution, is with us forever I fear. Be VERY careful about what you allow yourself to be hooked on by the unscrupulous bastards legally pushing drugs on todays society.
by
vet613 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments)
on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 3:30:25 PM
