"In addition," the AP said, "an internal Ortho McNeil memo shows that the company refused, in 2003, to fund a study comparing its Ortho Evra patch to its Ortho-Cyclen pill because of concerns there was 'too high a chance that study may not produce a positive result for Evra' and there was a 'risk that Ortho Evra may be the same or worse than Ortho-Cyclen.'"
From that point on, lawsuits filed included this newly reported information.
In light of all the damaging stories in the press during the fall of 2005, critics say its not that difficult to figure out why Johnson & Johnson was in a rush to start settling cases in January 2006, but at the same time, they say, the stories also made many more women aware of the type of injuries that are associated with the patch.
While J&J may have settled 30 cases in January as reported by the media, any sense of relief was short-lived because on January 30, 2006, the Madison St Clair Record, reported that J&J had been hit with seven brand new federal lawsuits on January 23, 2006, in the Southern District of Illinois, each seeking damages in excess of $75,000.
And since January 2006, the steady filing of lawsuits has continued unabated, with each new case usually accompanied by a press release.
On May 12, 2006, Knight Ridder reported the case of 20-year-old nursing student, Kristin Ribakusky-Templin, who experienced what started as a dull ache in her leg that within two weeks turned into shooting pains leaving her unable to walk and sent her to the emergency room where doctors found multiple blood clots deep in the veins of her lungs and leg.
The culprit, the doctors told her later, was the birth control patch she had been dutifully sticking to her body once a week for less than two months.
"The patch is still on the market," Knight Ridder noted.
In New Jersey, where 37 cases have been filed, the articles states, "the stories are hauntingly similar: An otherwise healthy Georgia woman develops a pulmonary embolism; a Maine woman suffers from a blood clot in her right lung; a 12-year-old girl in Indiana is diagnosed with deep-vein thrombosis, just like Ribakusky-Templin."
On May 18, 2006, a lawsuit was filed in New Jersey, on behalf of the family of a 17-year-old who suffered a stroke and died in August 2004 after using the Ortho Evra patch for approximately four months.
In a press release, an attorney from the firm handling the case said, "This is one of the saddest cases I've been involved with."
"This was a sweet 17 year old girl," he stated, "This shouldn't have happened and Johnson & Johnson and Ortho McNeil must be held accountable."
On September 5, 2006, a Drug Newswire press release reported the latest federal lawsuit filed in Texas by a 24-year-old woman who suffered a miscarriage and developed life-threatening blood clots after using the patch.
According to the lawsuit, in 2004, Elizabeth Barroso, began experiencing chest pains and difficulty breathing after using the patch for three weeks and spent eight days in the hospital where doctors treated her for blood clots in her lungs.
Upon release from the hospital, Ms Barroso was placed on blood thinning drugs for 10 months. She became pregnant in October 2004, but later suffered a miscarriage.
In 2005, she became pregnant again and was forced to endure daily injections of blood thinners to prevent another miscarriage. Due to her injuries, all of Ms Barroso's future pregnancies will carry a risk of miscarriage and will require similar treatment.
No woman should put these poisons on their skin or ingest birthcontrol pills. I started the pills in 1976 and within several months was having 4-5 migraines a week.It was seven years before the damage was corrected and the migraines ceased though I had ceased the pills immediately. Fortunately, I read that week I stopped that they had never been sufficiently tested by endocrinoligists!! I stopped IMMEDIATELY. Profits the game, not your health.Never had headaches in my life, I was 36 then.I learned of other horrors from women who took the pills. Women must take control of their bodies and listen to intuition. Nature did not intend these artificial methods or poisons to enter our bodies and disrupt natural rhythms. Let men take the burden for a while and not have women making it so easy for them to have unlimited and undisciplined sexual relations. Many other less harmful methods. That this company continues to foster the patch onto women, whose primary goal always is to please their man, is evil and cruel knowing of their subsequent threat to life.
Boycott, ban these patches!!! Most everything marketed on TV is suspect. Learn the natural way to good health, keep manufactuted poisons out of your bodies except where it is a matter of life and death. Drugs are crippling the people of this nation. Read Kevin Trudeau's book "Natural Cures THEY don't want you to know about."
by
Starchild (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments)
on Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 8:37:02 AM
THIS IS NOT NEWS! It is a blatant advertisement by a lawfirm
This is not a "news" article, nor it it an op-ed -- it is a blatant advertisement for Lawyers and Settlements.com! How irresponsible for opednews.com to accept and post such a submission. Is there no editorial board that reviews submissions???
PALEEZE!
by
Janet (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 1:04:51 PM
Then could you please direct readers to a mainstream media sources that has published the information I have found during my investigation and included in this report?
I am not a shill for attorneys and I could care less about waht attorneys make. I am a shill for anyone who has been harmed by the gigantic pharmaceutical industry and who don't have a chance of getting one thin dime going up against a drug company alone.
If the mainstream media would do its job instead of trading its soul to the highest bidder under the guise of "advertising dollars," also known as bribes, to keep its mouth shut about the harm these drug companies do to the average Americans, reporters like myself would not have to find other forums to get the word out.
Evelyn Pringle
by
Evelyn Pringle (186 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 1:40:06 PM
THIS IS NOT NEWS! It is a blatant advertisement by a lawfirm
It is NOT that the subject matter is not news -- indeed it is. But to use that lead (500 Ortho-Evra Birth Control Patch Victims Sue Johnson & Johnson) and to end with a link to the law firm...hey, wait a minute -- all of your "artilces" end with that link to lawyersandsettlements.com/...are you on their payroll?!?!?
by
Janet (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 2:34:37 PM
I get offered a topic and if I want to investigate it and submit a report, I take the job. My investigation is all my own and not a word of my work is edited by anyone.
The headline you mention is straight out of the company's latest SEC filing and I think it is highly newsworthy. Furthermore, if there are 500 more young women out there that have been injured by this patch, that this company knew caused this problem, I hope they sue the company as well.
As far as caring if people know that I get paid by the online marketing firm listed at the bottom of the article, I obviously am not trying to hide the identity of the firm that commissioned me to write the report and I really don't care who knows.
Again, if you can direct readers to a mainstream media source that will alert the public to all of the information that I dug up and included in my report, please do so I can move on to another topic.
Cheers,
Evie
by
Evelyn Pringle (186 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 3:57:10 PM
