Right now, patients who have been prescribed the drug Elmiron are claiming that the drug causes a toxic buildup of plaque inside the retina leading to vision problems and blindness. This is one of the hundreds of dangerous or defective drug lawsuits that are filed against pharmaceutical companies right now. In cases where the drug presents an unknown side effect, the company that manufactured it is responsible for compensating those injured.
However, all drugs are dangerous and must be taken carefully. Potentially, this could create a situation where a drug manufacturer was liable every time someone was injured. This is not the case. In some cases, the patient misuses the drug causing their own injury or death. In other cases, the physician failed to prescribe the proper drug, note a bad interaction, or note a restriction in the patient’s chart. In the rarest of cases, it is actually the pharmacist who is liable for the injury. Below, we’ll discuss these three situations.
### Drug, vaccine, and medical device lawsuits
Drugs and medical devices are considered products under the law. Vaccines are too, but they are in a special category. You cannot sue a company directly over a vaccine. You must file a claim with the vaccine compensation program.
A company is liable for a dangerous drug under three conditions. First, the drug is intrinsically dangerous causing unknown complications. Second, the drug has a manufacturing defect that made certain batches of the drug dangerous. Lastly, if the drug causes a dangerous complication, the company has a duty to warn. Failure to warn is the basis for most dangerous drug lawsuits. Even in cases where a company did not know their drug could cause a specific complication, they are still liable under the rules of product liability.
### Suing your doctor for medical malpractice
It sometimes happens that the plaintiff blames the drug company and the drug company blames the plaintiff’s doctor. Sometimes, the doctor is liable for a drug-related injury because they prescribed a medication that exacerbated a patient’s condition, caused a dangerous interaction, or simply prescribed the wrong medication. Many of these cases are actually categorized as misdiagnosis cases. If a doctor misdiagnoses a patient, they may give them the wrong medication.
###Pharmacy Malpractice
This is rare, but it does happen. Pharmacies may dispense the wrong medication. In one case, a pharmacy dispensed the correct medication, but the doctor’s instructions were cut off from the end of the label. The patient ended up taking too much medication for too long and suffered a severe reaction. It was determined that the pharmacy was liable because the label did not convey the doctor’s instructions and more than one pharmacist never caught the error.
### Talk to a Philadelphia Pharmaceutical Drug and Device Lawyer Today
Green & Schafle represent the interests of Philadelphia residents who have been injured by vaccines, pharmaceutical devices, and drugs. Call our Philadelphia vaccine injury lawyers today to schedule a free consultation and we can discuss your claims in more detail.
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