Drug Injury

Drug makers have a duty to ensure that their drugs are not unreasonably dangerous and have adequate warnings about the possible side effects and injuries. You trust that the drugs are safe and effective. No one should ever be injured because the drug makers failed to provide all the facts about their prescription medications.

Talcum Powder

Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder

We have all seen the commercials. Use Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder for that fresh clean feeling. What the ads did not reveal is that Johnson and Johnson have known of the association of their product and ovarian cancer. Two juries have agreed and awarded compensatory and punitive damages for Johnson and Johnson failure to warn.

Today Johnson and Johnson face over a thousand lawsuits for their failure to warn about these risks from using their baby powder.

Taxotere

Since at least 2005, Sanofi-Aventis has known that its Taxotere, or its generic brand docitaxel, manufactured by a Sanofi subsidiary, Winthrop, causes permanent hair loss in women with node-negative, or non-metastasized, cancer. Their failure to warn has left thousands of women, who have survived their breast cancer, without hair, many years after their treatments have stopped. Because the drug company fail to disclose this information, this drug company deprived many women of the choice to take Taxol, a more effective drug than Taxotere, and does not cause permanent hair loss.

Zantac

If you are like many individuals who suffered from chronic heartburn or acid reflux, you may have been prescribed or purchased over the counter Zantac or a generic ranitidine. Yet, what you may not have known, is that these drugs may contain a cancer-causing agent NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine). As a result, in April 2020, the Food and Drug Administration has issued a recall of these products and permanently discontinued any product that contain ranitidine.

NDMA is a chemical normally found in petroleum-based products such as gasoline, rocket fuel and industrial lubricants. Identified as a known carcinogenic, NDMA is no longer manufactured in the United States.

For those people who have taken Zantac or its generic version ranitidine for a period greater than three months, it has been associated with such cancers as Liver, Stomach, Kidney, Colon, Lung, or Pancreatic cancer. If you have been diagnosed with one of these cancers and have taken this drug, please call me to discuss your legal rights.

E-Cigarettes, Vaping and JUUL

Taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook, E-Cigarette makers, including JUUL, have seduced adolescents and young teens into believing “vaping” is cool and harmless. Sleek designs resembling a USB flash drive, eye-catching colors, fun flavors such as Fruit Loops, Pancake Syrup and Bubble Gum, and Instragram© and Facebook© Influencers all combined to bring nicotine addiction to this vulnerable group. JUUL has even handed out free samples and held launch make sure its products get to as many youths as possible. Most parents and teachers do not even realize that their children use e-cigarettes because of they are easily concealable design, have an odorless “poof” vapor and can be purchased without an adult at the local corner store. One JUUL “pod” contains as much nicotine as two packs of cigarettes; some youths vape as much as two pods a day. Once an individual has been hooked, the e-cigarette makers know they have a customer for life.

Yet, their misleading safety claims and aggressive marketing have created an entire generation addicted to nicotine overnight. As recent as 2016, tobacco use had dropped to a record low of 8 percent among high school students. Today, more that 3.6 million high school students, up from 1.5 million in 2017, vape. The health cost to these young students is shocking- serious respiratory problems, stroke, learning disabilities, and even death.

The Law Offices of Terence J. Sweeney, Esq. is currently reviewing cases involving adolescents, teens, and young adults under the age of 25 who have experienced respiratory issues, addiction, stroke, and death. If you or your child is addicted to vaping, I would like to speak to you.

Valsartan

Many doctors have prescribed their patients, who suffered from high blood pressure or a recent heart attack, Valsartan. Originally introduced under the brand name “Diovan”, it later became available as a generic drug in 2014. Oftentimes Valsartan is prescribed in combination with hydrochlorothiazide and/or amlodipine under the brand names “Diovan HCT”, “Exforge”, and “Exforge HCT” or Valsartan HCTZ.

These drugs, however, have been found to contain cancer causing substances or NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine). NDMA is a known carcinogenic which is no longer manufactured here in the United States. Its uses included the production of liquid rocket fuel, industrial lubricants, and gasoline.

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered the recall of many batches of the drug, with several drug companies voluntarily recalling it after discovering its manufacture occurred either in Chinese or Indian manufacturing plants. Those manufacturers have been found to process the ingredients with less than ideal safeguards to prevent contamination.

If you have taken any recalled Valsartan and diagnosed with cancer of the Bladder, Kidney, Colon, Stomach or liver, please contact me to discuss your rights.