Napoli Bern Ripka, LLP Blog

Wrongful Deaths Chalked up to Prescription Drug Use

            Many deaths have been attributed to taking medication that end up causing more harm then good. A multitude of drugs used in surgeries, procedures, and those taken on a daily basis have affected the lives of our family and friends. Influence from the pharmaceutical companies on doctors, nurses, and medical institutions play such a big role in deterring what kind of drug you are administered, its ridiculous. Incentives such as lavish meals, vacations, and other types of luxurious are handed to medical professionals to makes sure that they prescribe certain drugs. These “certain drugs’ cost the consumer and arm and a leg, and they pay it because they trust their doctors. The other half of the time patients have no idea what kind o drug they are administered, such as in surgeries. This leads us to the example of a drug called Trasylol that was predominately used in heart surgeries.

            Heart bypass surgeries done from the mid 90’s till 2007 used Trasylol to control bleeding among its patients undergoing the procedure. Trasylol was relatively expensive and was used in over 200,000 surgeries. However, it was found that Trasylol was linked to kidney failure, heart problems, and strokes resulting in death. The most concerning part of this whole ordeal is that Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Trasylol, did their own study which proved that these negative side effects were linked to the use of Trasylol. The horrendous part is that Bayer did not give this information to the FDA in one of their meetings. Therefore Bayer could have stopped thousands of people from using their product; they could have saved thousands of lives. It was also found that using Trasylol increased the likelihood to 50% that the patient would die in five years following the use of Trasylol than if the patient used another comparative drug. Another issue with Trasylol is that it costs $1300 per dosage compared to $45 per dosage of another comparative drug. Not only is Bayer increasing patient’s risk of death by 50%, but they are also emptying their wallets. Wouldn’t you rather have a 50% less risk of dying and $1,255 in your pocket, than the alternative? Yes? I thought so.

            It is estimated that over 20,000 deaths could have been avoided if Trasylol was not administered in heart bypass surgeries. Also if you do the math, $25,100,000 would have stayed in the hands of individuals instead of going to the pharmaceutical giant, Bayer. Maybe this lack of $25 mill is something that has contributed to our depleting economy. If the $25 mill was in our pockets today, it would give us a good start to salvaging our economy. So that is exactly what we intend to do. Wrongful death lawsuits due to many different pharmaceutical drugs are becoming prevalent all over the nation, in which people are taking a stand that we will not be victims of this drug and this pharmaceutical company.