It’s a typical pain pump story—the patient has a minor shoulder injury and gets routine arthroscopic shoulder surgery; the patient recovers from surgery okay and feels better, but then within a year patient’s shoulder starts to really hurt. The patient returns to the doctor and discovers his cartilage is missing.…
Last week, we briefly mentioned the FDA’s new requirement of a black box warning (yes, we will continue calling it a “black box warning”). This week, we had a one day trial that turned into a three-day trial, so we’re just now getting to follow up on it. The warnings…
The makers of Levaquin (generic: levofloxacin) are currently embroiled in litigation, with 83 federal cases consolidated before Judge Tunheim of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Federal cases were transferred to Minnesota almost a year ago. Currently, the Court and the parties are working on case-specific…
For two years, Florida attorney Frederick Schaffer has sought the answer to his lack of smell. He’s gone to doctor after doctor, searching for a solution and cause to the medical condition known as anosmia. He had a camera rammed down his nasal passage, as well as an MRI and…
The blog Drug and Device Law posted today on the Bausch & Lomb cases. The lawyers working the keyboards, Jim Beck and Mark Herrmann, do a good job with their blog, and it’s always interesting to read. That said, they are clearly defense lawyers, and have the accompanying defense biases…
With well over 100 cases filed in at least 21 states, the shoulder pain pump litigation is gaining steam. Pain pumps are small devices used to control post-operative pain. However, pump catheters placed near cartilage (usually the shoulder, but sometimes the knee or even toe) can cause the progressive deterioration…
Kugel Mesh patches, used to repair ventral and incisional hernias, were approved by the FDA in 1996. By 2002, Davol Inc. began receiving complaints but blamed injuries on the doctors who were installing the patches. However, they issued a recall in December 2005. The patch has a “memory recoil ring”…
Reglan (generic: metoclopramide) is a drug used to treat heartburn and slow gastric emptying in diabetes patients. The drug is commonly used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gastroparesis, and other conditions affecting the digestive system. The danger that Reglan lawyers are investigating is tardive dyskinesia (also known as TD),…
New from Twitter (side-issue—I’ve been trying to figure out decent work-related uses for Twitter for some time. This might be it—I can get instantaneous reports from the FDA about recalls and other safety issues related to drugs and devices—if you’d like to join the club, then just go to your…
Yesterday, the Health Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the Medical Device Safety Act of 2009 (H.R. 1346). This new law that would restore important the rights of defective medical devices that were eradicated by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Riegel…