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In October 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a significant recall of WanaBana fruit pouches due to elevated lead levels found in specific samples of WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Purée pouches. All WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Purée pouches, regardless of their expiration date, are included in this recall.

Following this discovery, the FDA urgently advised parents and caregivers to immediately stop providing these pouches to children and to safely dispose of any remaining products. Additionally, the FDA strongly recommended that toddlers and young children who might have consumed the recalled pouches undergo a blood test to check for potential lead exposure and consult with a healthcare provider.

Lead poisoning poses severe health risks, including developmental delays, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and even fatal outcomes. Lead, a toxic metal, can harm the nervous system, particularly in children.

From the early 1950s to the later 1980s, the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina provided residents and employees with drinking water that was heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals. Extensive scientific research has revealed that the poisoned water supply at Camp Lejeune had a devastating impact on the long-term health of base residents, who have suffered significantly higher rates of birth defects, cancer, and neurological conditions.

Many of the Camp Lejeune water contamination victims have brought civil lawsuits seeking financial settlements for their injuries. Unfortunately, a harsh law in North Carolina called a statute of repose has effectively blocked all of these victims from pursuing their claims and getting the justice they deserve. However, the U.S. Congress has now fixed this injustice by passing a new federal law that will allow former Lejeune residents to file water contamination lawsuits despite the law in North Carolina.

May 2023 Update

Roche recently unveiled results from a Phase 3 trial of Tecentriq for early-stage liver cancer. The study looked at the use of  Tecentriq and Avastin.  These two drugs work together to target and destroy cancer cells in the body. Tecentriq strengthens the immune system to fight cancer cells, while Avastin prevents the growth of new blood vessels that supply the tumor with nutrients to grow. The manufacturer of both drugs, Genentech, has indicated that the combination appears to reduce the risk of liver cancer recurrence.

The Tecentriq and Avastin combination reduced the risk of disease recurrence or death by 28% when compared to active surveillance after surgery. These results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s 2023 annual meeting are wildly encouraging and wildly concerning – all at the same time.

Early Stage Liver Cancer

Recent studies have established that prolonged use or exposure to the industrial herbicide paraquat (Grameoxone) can lead to the development of early-onset Parkinson’s disease. Now thousands of agriculture workers are filing paraquat lawsuits alleging that they developed Parkinson’s due to occupational exposure to paraquat.

The paraquat cases have been consolidated into a “class action” MDL which should eventually results in a global settlement with payments to all claimants. This post will look at how much settlement compensation paraquat plaintiffs might reasonably expect to get.

Related Paraquat Posts

Warfarin is an anticoagulant medication commonly used to prevent blood clots and stroke in individuals with certain medical conditions such as atrial fibrillation, heart valve replacement, and deep vein thrombosis. It works by blocking the production of certain clotting factors in the blood. Warfarin is one of the most widely prescribed anticoagulants and has been in use for over 60 years.

This page looks at Warfarin side effects and litigation that has surrounded this medication.

• Eliquis side effects

Eliquis, also known by its generic name apixaban, is an anticoagulant medication prescribed to reduce the risk of stroke and blood clots in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, as well as to treat and prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE).

This post talks about Eliquis side effects. Every drug has them.  But Eliquis has proven to be generally safe and effective.

Our law firm is not involved in any Eliquis lawsuits and attorneys do not believe there are viable causes of action with respect to the side effects of Eliquis.

Our lawyers are investigating toxic baby food autism lawsuits.

What triggered our involvement in these cases was a congressional investigation last year that revealed that many popular brands of baby foods in the U.S. contain dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Scientific evidence and studies have shown that consumption of these metals during infancy and early childhood can cause neurologic damage and autism.

Product liability lawsuits are now being filed nationwide against baby food manufacturers. These baby food autism lawsuits allege that the manufacturers knowingly sold their products with unsafe levels of toxic metals and that the plaintiffs developed autism spectrum disorders from consuming them in their baby foods.

Nexium, or esomeprazole, is a drug that is used to treat heartburn and excessive amounts of acid in the stomach. Specifically, it is used to treat duodenal and gastric ulcers, esophagitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Nexium is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) that decreases the amount of acid produced in the stomach. Other drugs that are in the same class as Nexium include Prevacid and Prilosec. Approximately 15 million Americans use PPIs that are sold both as prescription and over-the-counter. Nexium sales exceed $3 billion a year.

Nexium Class Action Lawsuit Updates 

March 2023: The bellwether trial in the Nexium PPI litigation that was supposed to get started this month has now been postponed to June 5, 2023. Two additional bellwether trials will follow in July and September. No explanation for the postponement was given, but many believe that was done because the parties are close to a settlement. 

August 2022:  Defendants in the PPI MDL had moved to dismiss all failure to warn claims in the PPI class action lawsuit because they are preempted. The argument, and it is a weak one, is that because the FDA (a federal agency) approved the warning labels, state law claims cannot be brought. 

Our lawyers talked about this in the last update in June – this motion is crucial because the crux of this class action lawsuit is that you knew of this problem with kidney injuries yet you did not change their product, instructions, guidelines, or, most importantly, warn doctors of the risk. 

The Special Master in the MDL likely put this issue to bed in the Prilosec-Nexium class action lawsuit. issued a report to the MDL Judge recommending that this argument be rejected because the defendants cannot show that the FDA would have rejected proposals for stronger warnings about kidney damage. The first bellwether trial in the MDL is set for November.

June 2022: The defendants in the Nexium-Prilosec PPI class action MDL have filed motions for summary judgment in the upcoming bellwether test trials. The primary legal argument in this motion is based on a doctrine called federal preemption. The preemption doctrine holds that victims are blocked from bring tort lawsuits under state law if there is a federal law that protects the defendants from liability. The Special Master in the MDL recently allowed both parties to submit additional briefing to address how a recently decided case on the preemption issue (In re Fosamax Alendronate Prod. Liab. Lit.) could potentially impact the issues in the Nexium-Prilosec cases. Our lawyers have read the Fosamax case (which rules in favor of defendants on a preemption argument) and in our opinion it is not applicable to the issues in the PPI cases.

April 2022: There are around 13,500 lawsuits pending in the Nexium-Prilosec PPI class action MDL.  The first trial will be in October.  The hope is that a few trials will set settlement amounts for Nexium kidney lawsuits. But many class action lawsuits – at least lately – have had trials and the parties still could not agree to a settlement amount for the victims.  So the judge, in this case, wants to keep the pressure on the lawyers.  So if a global settlement is not reached, the MDL Judge has identified a group of 200 cases that the parties will be preparing for trial over the next 16 months.

• These drugs have had a troubled history.  Zantac, which was long considered a great and safe drug, has now been associated with cancer.

Problems with Nexium

Nexium is a controversial drug.  At one point, bone fracture lawsuits were all the rage because there was data suggesting Nexium, particularly the long-term use of Nexium, would cause bone fractures and breaks.  Our lawyers believed many of these lawsuits were meritorious.  But the litigation did not get very far.

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Within the past year, many lawsuits have been filed against Teva Pharmaceuticals. These Paragard IUD lawsuits allege that suits allege that Teva’s IUD fractures upon removal, resulting in fragments being left in the uterus. The plaintiffs claimed this caused them to undergo additional removal procedures, which would have been unnecessary had this defect not occurred.  The purpose of this page is to provide a status update on the current state of the Paragard lawsuits as of late February 2023.  Other Paragard law firms and websites are providing updates on this litigation, and I would encourage you to follow them here, here, and here.

Indeed, the biggest news in the short history of this litigation was last month when these lawsuits were centralized into an MDL in Georgia federal court.  This means there will be a class action in which all federal court cases will be consolidated in Georgia under one judge.  So if you have a federal case in California, Texas, Florida, or anywhere, it will end up.

Let’s start out by talking about some of the science behind these cases.  Usually, what fuels litigation is that studies come out, and lawyers jump on these studies to bring lawsuits.  In this litigation, it might be a little bit backward.  It took a while for plaintiffs’ lawyers to pick up on the problems with Paragard.  Now a new study this year further supports the contention Paragard lawyers are making.