Will Paxil Settlements Encourage Better Communication Between Drug Makers and Doctors?
Now that another Paxil lawsuit is set to go to trial in May, it has many people wondering if all of these settlements against Glaxo, the makers of Paxil, will begin to encourage better communication between drug makers and doctors in the future.
These questions are coming into play now because most of the lawsuits against the drug companies are alleging that the companies hid information that specifically pointed out the dangerous side effects associated with these drugs from the public and the doctors as well. This information is important because it is the doctors who prescribe these drugs and many of the doctors are prescribing the drugs for off-label uses that aren't approved by the FDA.
By now it is common knowledge that Paxil has been prescribed for off-label uses when it is meant to be used as an antidepressant. However, another question that arises is what to do when a woman is taking the medication and becomes pregnant. Paxil is also associated with horrible withdrawal symptoms when the drug is stopped too quickly, and many studies have been conducted to try to figure out if Paxil was more harmful to the mother or the baby. Various studies have shown that the drug is harmful to both pregnant women and their babies, and the proof of this may lie in the lawsuit settlements.
Plaintiffs in the Paxil case that are of going to trial in May have stated that the evidence will prove that Glaxo ignored all of the studies that proved the drug causes birth defects, and that they didn't properly warn doctors about that Paxil is potentially life-threatening to patients and their unborn children.
The FDA apparently agreed with the plaintiffs before the lawsuit was filed when they asked Glaxo to add the fact that it increased the chance of a child developing congenital heart defects when the drug was taken by the pregnant mother in the first trimester on the label. The Paxil label was changed in December of 2005, and only two Paxil birth defects cases have made it to trial since then. Of those two Paxil birth defects trials, one of them was settled for $2.5 million to the plaintiff at the end of 2009. As for the birth defects trial that is coming in May, the results should be interesting.
