Chicago Drug Injury Lawyers

Lawsuits for FDA Recall Pharmaceutical Drugs

Were you or a loved one injured by a defective medication? At Rosenfeld Injury Attorneys, our personal injury lawyers represent injured patients harmed by taking prescription medications and over-the-counter drugs.

Call our product liability lawyers at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone call) or use the contact form today to schedule a free consultation and tell us what happened. Then, we can hold the medication manufacturer financially accountable for its negligence and strict liability.

Doctors prescribe medications to help their patients deal with health issues. But, every time a patient takes medicine, they trust the drug companies that make the medication will not harm them.

However, some pharmaceutical companies violate this trust by selling defective prescription medicine. Often, the drugmaker knows that they are marketing a dangerous product but fails to warn consumers.

You can file a lawsuit to receive financial compensation when a defective medication has harmed you.

Defective Drug Attorneys Helping Injured Patients and Consumers

At Rosenfeld Injury Attorneys, our personal injury legal firm has committed lawyers who help their clients file claims for compensation against pharmaceutical drug companies who marketed and sold the drugs that harmed them.

Our dangerous medication lawyers help our clients build their drug personal injury cases by working with them to gather evidence in their legal action, both scientific and otherwise.

A client can file a dangerous medications lawsuit with our law firm today whether they have been injured by prescription medications or over-the-counter meds (including for health problems like chronic kidney disease).

If you were seriously injured or a loved one died due to dangerous medications, contact our defective pharmaceutical lawyers for a free consultation.

We handle pharmaceutical product cases on a contingency fee basis where we only receive a legal fee when we are successful in securing financial compensation for you.

Corporate Push to Promote Prescription Drugs to the Market – At the Expense of Consumer Safety

It seems like recalls are happening more often these days. One of the primary reasons is a growing awareness of the possibility that many drugs may be contaminated with a carcinogen.

These concerns have led to complete recalls of the popular heartburn medicine Zantac and the blood pressure medication Valsartan over the past few years. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is often slow to act on dangerous meds.

These are just two of many recalls involving prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications that affect clients each year in the United States. Drug manufacturers often have an ongoing obligation to test their products for their safety.

In addition, they must review reports by patients who claim that they have been harmed by meds and suffered from prescription drug injuries.

Manufacturers who follow the law will often pull products from the marketplace if they have received numerous reports from patients who have suffered a similar type of harm. Additionally, serious side effects should cause a medication maker to initiate more testing and investigation, often leading to a complete recall.

However, drug manufacturers do not always do the right thing to protect customers who put their lives in the hands of the pharmaceutical company.

Profits Over Safety

Some of these drug makers put profits first and will continue to sell the drugs that make them money, even when there are mounting reports of serious harm to patients and clients. These companies either do not want to know the truth or hide it because they want to continue making money by selling harmful drugs.

Sometimes, the federal government may step in and order their recall. However, patients cannot always rely on the FDA approval process to save them from injuries by the most dangerous medications. To an extent, the FDA relies on the drug-making industry to test its product. Yet, the FDA will only order a recall in more severe cases.

Patients Can File Dangerous Meds Lawsuits Similar to Other Product Liability Cases

Patients harmed by recalled defective meds can file a lawsuit to recover financial compensation. These are a type of product liability lawsuit.

Some of these settlements and jury awards can be huge when it comes to medications because of the large amount of harm that defective recalled drugs can do to patients.

When clients file a defective medicine lawsuit, they will be entitled to both economic and non-economic damages. These are intended to put you in the same position as if the damage never happened.

Here are some of what you can recover in a dangerous medication civil case:

• Medical bills (past and future)
• Lost earnings
• Rehab care
• Medical expenses
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Lost consortium
• Punitive damages
• Wrongful death

The amount of financial compensation the victim can obtain in a defective medication lawsuit varies greatly between cases. Usually, the amount is based on the extent of the victim's damages, the severity of their injuries, and the cost of their medical expenses and future requirements.

How a Dangerous Drugs Lawsuit Works

The first step for filing a defective medication lawsuit usually requires hiring a Chicago drug injury attorney. The legal team at Rosenfeld Injury Attorneys has years of experience handling defective medicine cases and can help you.

You will work with your lawyer starting from the moment you form an attorney-client relationship to gather evidence to support your case.

Your attorney will get to know the facts of your case before drafting a complaint on your behalf and file it with the court before the statute of limitations expires. Filing your case starts your defective drug lawsuit.

Your case will need to go through the discovery process, where your attorney tries to get relevant documents and information from the medication company that can help prove your case.

In cases involving recalls, the chances are that your case will be a part of something called multidistrict litigation, where the plaintiffs all work together during discovery. Although the process takes some time to complete, your lawyer will begin resolving your defective lawsuit by negotiating a settlement.

Some cases will settle before they go to trial. However, other cases will end up in front of the jury, and you should discuss this in consultation with your lawyer. Your attorney will also be working with scientific and medical experts to make your points that the medicine was defective.

What You Need to Prove to Win a Defective Medication Lawsuit Against Drug Manufacturers

A defective medicine lawsuit is like any other product liability case. First, you need to establish that there was a defect that made the medication unreasonably dangerous.

In general, there are three different ways that you can prove that a drug was defective:

• There was a design defect in the medicine that caused side effects or injuries
• There was a manufacturing defect that made it dangerous
• There was a marketing defect that failed to warn users of severe side effects

In all injury cases, it is not enough to show a defect. You must prove that the medicine was unreasonably dangerous to your well-being. After this, you must show that dangerous pharmaceutical drugs were the cause of your injuries.

You will likely need to work with medical and scientific experts to reach this point. First, they will need to testify that the medicine is defective. Then, you will need a law firm that knows how to work with these experts to get results.

In addition, your product liability lawyer or firm will need to engage in extensive discovery to learn what the company knew when they were selling and designing these medications.

In many defective medicine cases, an attorney must obtain evidence that the company knew all along that the product they were selling was dangerous, yet they continued to market it.

Your Legal Rights in Drug Injury Cases

All steps to resolve the case will take time and effort. Defective drug cases can take years to prosecute before the defendant is even when they are willing to settle the case with the firm.

Above, we mentioned two significant recalls of widespread medications. Here are some more significant recalls in recent years:

• Vioxx – 140,000 plaintiffs and $5 billion in settlement
• Fen-Phen – 50,000 lawsuits with over $20 billion in damages
• Baycol – 700,000 plaintiffs and $1 billion in settlement
• Diethylstilbestrol – $42 million awarded to just eleven women

If you are successful in your dangerous medicine recall case with your firm and injury attorneys, the size of your settlement or jury award may vary.

What to Do When Filing a Dangerous Medication Recall Lawsuit

If you have recently learned that you have taken a pharmaceutical product that has been recalled, you should do the following:

• Continue to monitor your medical condition regularly, even if you do not feel any symptoms or notice adverse reactions.
• If you feel any side effects of the medication, make sure that you see a doctor immediately and begin to document the issue with your medical records.
• If you have been injured in any way, gather your medical records and any other documentation of the damage done.
• Keep track of any damages or expenses that are related to your injuries.
• See an injury lawyer immediately.

A dangerous pharmaceutical drug lawyer can file your lawsuit if your complaint is submitted to the court within the applicable statute of limitations. Unfortunately, many people do not know how long they have to file a lawsuit.

Medicine Recall Frequently Asked Questions

Our law firm understands that many families have unanswered questions about dealing directly with the insurance company seeking financial compensation for defective medication. Our dangerous drug attorneys have answered some of those questions below.

For additional information, contact a dangerous medication lawyer at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone number) or use the contact form to schedule a free case evaluation.

Can You Sue for Recall Medication?

Most likely, yes. After all, the medication is not being recalled for no reason. So the chances are that there is a defect either in the design, manufacture, or marketing of the medication.

When that happens, and you or other people suffer injuries sustained by taking new drugs, you can file a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical manufacturer with attorneys of your choosing for compensation. Usually, it does not matter whether you took the drug for a day or years.

Injured victims can recover financial compensation for their medical bills, lost wages, pain & suffering, emotional distress, and punitive damages in cases where the manufacturer's action was egregious.

Some law firms will initiate a class-action lawsuit against the drug manufacturer for many plaintiffs with severe harm sustained from taking the same drug.

Is the FDA Responsible for Recalling Defective Drugs?

It depends. Some recalls are voluntary. They can come from the drug manufacturer, pharmacies, or even the FDA.

Doctors may be guilty of medical malpractice if their patients suffer an adverse reaction by taking a combination of old and new drugs or if an incorrect dosage was prescribed. Additionally, the pharmaceutical manufacturer might be at fault if they fail to perform proper testing before the medication is approved, leading to an adverse reaction by drug combinations.

What Would Cause a Drug to Be Recalled?

The cause for recalls is something wrong with it (design flaw or warning labels) that threatens patient safety, including design or manufacture. Any inadequately tested medication, improperly prescribed, or poorly manufactured could cause severe damage.

Doctors prescribe many of these medications to treat conditions to improve people's lives. Unfortunately, however, some medicines are hazardous to human health.

What Drugs Have Been Recalled By the FDA?

The government agency has recalled many defective drugs over the years because of devastating side effects, including Zantac and Fen-Phen affecting millions of people.

Many medications are recalled because of catastrophic adverse drug reactions that prove life-changing and difficult to cope with once the damage occurs.

For example, some medications have been recalled due to the increased risk of congenital heart failure, heart attacks, pancreatic cancer (when using some diabetes medications), deep vein thrombosis, and facial tic-like movements related to tardive dyskinesia.

What Happens When a Drug Is Recalled?

When there is a recall, the over-the-counter drug or prescription product is pulled from the market either in whole or in part.

The recall may be initiated by the drug manufacturer that discovers some dangers after reports of harm or testing on people. Alternatively, the product may be recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.

When there is a recall, some individuals may be advised to stop taking medicine completely. In other recalls, people are not told to stop taking medicine completely but should consult their doctors.

Which Class of Drug Companies Recall Is the Most Serious?

When it comes to a recall, there are three different classes, depending on the seriousness of the issues with the drug. The most severe medication recall is a Class I recall.

A drug defect can cause serious injuries or even death, even the least serious class, a Class III drug recall.

What Does It Usually Mean If a Drug Recall is Voluntary?

The pharmaceutical company may conduct a voluntary recall without a direct order from the FDA. Often, the manufacturer is in close consultation with the government agency when it initiates a voluntary recall, following the federal agency's recommendations.

Nearly all drug recalls are voluntary. While mandatory recalls are rare, they still happen thousands of times each year.

Get a Case Review from our Dangerous Drug Lawyers

You or a loved one can file drug injury claims against pharmaceutical manufacturers if injured by defective medications with the help of an experienced drug injury lawyer and law office.

Contact a defective medication lawyer at Rosenfeld Injury Attorneys (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone number) or use the contact form to schedule a free case evaluation with our team of drug injury attorneys.

Speak with an experienced personal injury attorney who understands the complexities of mass tort cases, class action lawsuits, and the pharmaceutical industry. Our firm has helped many injured victims recover compensation for injuries related to a prescribed drug.

Our legal firm currently follows CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Covid-19 (coronavirus pandemic) social distancing guidelines to ensure our client's safety and can discuss your case through video

conferencing.

We are only paid through a contingency fee if you are successful in your case and obtain financial recovery. If not, you and your loved one owe us nothing.

Resources

• Food and Drug Administration – Dangerous Medications & Recalls
• CNN – A Third of FDA-Approved Drugs Have Problems