$520M Pharmaceutical Liability Settlement For Seroquel
The British pharmacuetical company AstraZeneca is now part of the ever-growing club of drug producers that have paid out millions of dollars in settlements to company whistle-blowers over pharmaceutical liability complaints.
Two federal investigations and two former employees garnished a sum total of $520 million to settle a lawsuit over the sale and marketing of AstraZenec’s very popular psychiatric drug, Seroquel. The whistle-blower case is in connection to off-label marketing of Seroquel while the government investigation found documentation involving “selected physicians who participated in clinical trials involving Seroquel.”
Our San Diego personal injury attorneys know that pharmaceutical companies are looking to make a profit. For some companies, stopping injuries from major side effects — i.e. brain injury or wrongful death — might not always be the top priority. If there’s a way for them to push their drugs onto the market as quickly as possible, then our guess is that they will do it, often at the expense of the personal injury it may cause consumers.
The federal lawsuit claims that pharmaceutical liability was or could have been prevelant during clinical trials by the pharmacuetical company and that AstraZeneca was well aware of the risks associated with their products. Many times Seroquel was prescibed by doctors  to treat personal injuries and conditions not cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Many Seroquel users have developed diabetes and other health problems while the marketing campaigns lead by AstraZeneca were misleading. As of October 9th, 2009 there have been an additional 14,444 civil pharmaceutical liability lawsuits by people who had used Seroquel in an off-label manner.
If you are currently taking Seroquel, then you should check with your doctor to make sure that you are not at risk, but anyone harmed by a dangerous drug should seek out the services of knowledgeable personal injury lawyer from our San Diego firm.
Call us now at 1-800-655-6585 or click here for a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer and find out how we can help you. We speak English and Spanish, and we look forward to providing advice for your case. No fee if no recovery.
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March 7th, 2010 at 7:36 am
http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10004939/nami-board-member-was-paid-consultant-on-azs-seroquel-documents-say/?tag=content;selector-perfector
the reason seroquel is still being touted and defended by pharma, congress and just the whole medical establishment is what i can gather from these facts:
1) persons with bad psychosis or sever bi-polar manic episodes in the past had to be admitted frequently to the hospital psyche wards for weeks of observation and after a high recividsm rate ended up in a state asylum
obviouslly there is no money but for this miracle drug it eliminates costly hospital stays at tax payers expense
2) fact supporting the tactic approval is the fact these patients are know to not take their medicines as prescribed and rarely ever follow through on drug maintenance program offered to them by medicaid programs locally
3) these psychotics after a while off their legal meds once they start feeling ok they naturally at some point start getting into trouble many times taking alchohol or drugs and then the miracle occurs when all they need to do is grab a few seroquel pills to knock them out for a few days
4) the medicine is a godsend for medical community who otherwise know no cure exists for these people and they truly are not alcoholics or drug abusers as typically arises from recreational use the seek these as palliatives
5) FDA only approved seroquel for teh two conditions above however emails exist advising sales reps to essentially lie to drs that it was approved for off use for anxiety and agitation etc when in fact dangers were known
6) Astrazeneca(co) sent warning letters to drs in japan but not here although you did state it is there hidden in fine print now that blood glucose levels to be monitored before and during use of said drug
7) the two above FDA approved uses represent a very small percentage of psychotics and bi polars who would actually need thsi drug for instance many bi polars on just lithium alone are fine- these extreme manic episodes of people ripping the walls down in their homes are rare
9) finally-although i am sure more damaging evidence exists in what the courts have on file in cases termed bellweather i guess nicer way of saying iron clad-the many innocent people harmed by this drug were the honest ones abiding by their doctors set dosage and taking them as scheduled. these are the ones whose lives will never be the same in fact some have died i dont have an exact account but this is public knowledge listed on the web and the rest whose bodies and health are declining rapidly just waiting to die and wish they were dead
10) it is very simple to determine a bell weather case- just take a patient who has been on several medications for 18 years and has medical records that glucose levels,blood pressure, genera health show no change but steady functioning life of wwork and stbaility devoid of severe episodes once he gets on this stuff s- seroquel and finds months later he thinks he is dying then the proof is there- this person was responsible with his life, did not waste valuable resources by being constantly hospitalized etc and he is the one victimized here
11)and in the case i know well the patient had non of the FDA approved symptoms he only had anxiety and agitation that in reality a good psychiatrist could have handled rather than a mere drug pusher who you and the whole system support
12) I say this because this ad glosses over in an artistic sleight of hand the dangers of this drug which leads me to believe you are aiding the defendants by with holding the damaging aspect as your fine print’s lack of bold lettering further supported AZN on the fine print lending itself to this fact as you obviously know these dangers but by failing to place them in plain view same as defendents you instead chose to obsure them within the accolades of some andy warhol asian knock off wannabe artist ad- that is the only message the ad supports same as you do when in order to help teh public you should have torn down the artists works subjectively to avoid more deaths
13) this whole chain of events is a disgrace and indictment against the gross intentional culpability of AZN and you the media for tacitly looking the other way the same as the medical community has down all along- you dont have the guts to stand up against these drug co because you might affect their stock price and become irrelevant as an media analyst losing respect from your peers is worse than saving lives us the suckers who trust