According to Johnson & Johnson's latest SEC filing for the Second Quarter of 2006, the company is currently facing 500 claimants in lawsuits related to deaths and injuries caused by the Ortho Evra birth control patch.
"These claimants," the filing notes, "seek substantial compensatory and, where available, punitive damages.
However, the company's filing does not disclose any of settlements of cases reported over the past nine months in the press, and does not identify any financial reserves that are set aside to pay the settlements.
Legal analysts say the 500 claims are just the tip of the iceberg, because there are thousands of young women all over the country who have suffered blood clots, heart attacks and strokes who are still unaware of the culprit. And it logically follows, they say, that many families have lost a daughter, sister, wife, or mother who also do not know that the patch is to blame.
In 2005 alone, doctors wrote more than 9.4 million prescriptions for the Ortho Evra patch, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical industry-tracking firm.
Attorneys handling these lawsuits say J&J knows these cases are easily winnable because unlike most other cases involving a specific drug, there are no preexisting conditions with women in this age group and the kind of deaths and injuries brought on by the Ortho patch are virtually unheard of in teenagers and young women of childbearing age.
For that reason, J&J has adopted a strategy to settle as many lawsuits as quickly and quietly as possible. The company has obviously taken the position that the deaths, injuries and settlements with these women are just a necessary expense of doing business in the name of profits.
One thing's for sure, the company is not about to remove the mega-buck patch from the market and lose billions of dollars in future sales.
In fact, many of the lawsuits have already ended in confidential settlements with barely a peep of coverage in the mainstream media. And for others cases, Johnson & Johnson has made it abundantly clear to opposing attorneys that the company is eager to cut a deal.
The New York Post was about the only major newspaper to cover the story about the payoffs. On April 9, 2006, it reported that women "who suffered life-threatening blood clots and strokes on the Ortho-Evra birth-control patch are receiving cash settlements from the manufacturer."
"Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical," the Post said, "has settled a dozen lawsuits for millions of dollars in the last few months, and more than 100 other suits are pending."
One lawyer who asked not to be identified told the Post that the company had been "approaching everyone" representing women, and that lawyers had begun submitting cases for settlement.
During its investigation, the Post used the FOIA to obtain FDA records that showed that 17 women between the ages of 17 and 30, who had used the patch, had died from unlikely causes in view of their age group, of heart attacks, blood clots, and possible strokes, since August 2002.
Scores of other women on the patch, the Post reported, had suffered other complications including 21 life-threatening cases of blood clots and other ailments.
Doctors who reviewed the reports voiced alarm over the number of fatalities. "This is a cause for concern," warned Dr John Quagliarello, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Medical Center.
He and other doctors said that the discovery by the Post was the first they had ever heard of multiple deaths linked to the Ortho patch.
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 (183 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 (183 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 3:57:10 PM
