Pharmaceutical Litigation

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Seeking Justice for Defective Drugs Through Pharmaceutical Litigation

I founded my law firm on medical malpractice litigation, and gradually moved into pharmaceutical litigation as well. Many firms abandoned this area of law because they believed that federal pre-emption would be too big of an impediment to winning a case. I realized that it was going to take diligence, but still there were many pharmaceutical products cases that needed to be brought to protect consumers from dangerous drugs. The recent 6-3 (March 4, 2009) Supreme Court ruling in Wyeth v. Levine, states that federal law does NOT pre-empt state lawsuits for inadequate drug label warnings. What this means for our clients is that even if a drug is approved by the FDA, the drug companies can not simply hide behind label warnings or the FDA’s approval, either. The FDA has limited resources to monitor the 11,000 drugs in the American marketplace. Manufacturers are responsible for the drugs they sell because they have superior access to information about risks involving their products. In addition, as new risks emerge in the post-marketing phase, drug makers are responsible for updating labels, the FDA, doctors and consumers of any new problems. Here at Witzer Law, we have stayed immersed in the field of pharmaceutical litigation, not giving up when others believed it was too hard to win, and therefore we have remained at the front of the pack in having the up-to-date expertise to continue to win these cases for our clients.

In the sad case of Ms. Diana Levine, she was given an IV-push administration of the drug Phenergan for her migraine. The drug company Wyeth, in this 6-3 majority ruling, did not issue strong enough warnings about how the method of injecting this drug had extreme risks. Ms. Levine, a guitarist, developed gangrene in her hand due to the injection, and had to have her arm amputated. A Vermont jury awarded her $6.7 million dollars for her pain and suffering. Now she will be entitled to collect her award.

Here at Witzer Law, I have taken on groundbreaking pharmaceutical litigation cases, and I have found that big drug corporations will use almost any lame excuse to get out of monitoring the dangers associated with their products. In the case of Wyeth V. Levine, the defense argued that they believed that federal law prohibited them from revising their drug warnings. This seemingly lame excuse was dispatched by Justice Stevens who wrote in his opinion, “Under federal law and FDA regulations, the manufacturer bears responsibility for the content of its label at all times.”