May 23, 2007Attorneys getting calls about possible Avandia lawsuits
Attorneys examining the case of GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia say that the company may soon face a flood of Avandia lawsuits by people who were injured or by the families of those who died using the drug.A study conducted by Dr. Steven Nissen and published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Avandia patients are 64% more likely to suffer a heart-related death and 43% more likely to suffer a heart attack than people taking other drugs or a placebo. Dr. Nissen and his colleagues did what is called a “meta-analysis” in which they looked at the raw data of dozens of clinical trials involving Avandia users and patients.
Avandia attorneys are fielding calls from patients who suffered side effects of Avandia and are pondering a lawsuit. One attorney says that the NEJM study makes it possible to show that these patients were in fact injured by taking Avandia. Others have opined that before all is said and done, tens of billions of dollars will have been won as compensation for deaths and injuries caused by Avandia.
“If the increased risk of cardiac death is as high as this suggests, it should be possible to draw the connection to cardiac events,” says one Avandia attorney, “especially patients who had not had previous history of heart disease or heart attacks.”