Botox and Botox Cosmetics have been given a new warning label in Canada that indicates that the anti-wrinkle drug can spread to other parts of the body. This potential side effect can be fatal. The new label also states that the drug can cause muscle weakness, difficulties in swallowing, pneumonia, and speech disorders.

The muscle relaxant has been licensed in Canada to treat facial nerve disorders and cerebral palsy, but it is much more commonly used to eliminate wrinkles and other facial age lines. Last February, the FDA linked the spread of Botox in the body to both FDA-approved and non-approved applications of the drug.

The new label stems from an investigation performed by Health Canada last October. Five patients died following Botox injections, and more than eight patients experienced severe side effects. The condition was deemed “distant toxin spread” by Health Canada.

The investigation also determined that doctors downplay the risks involved with Botox injections.

Watch out for illegitimate stem cell therapies being sold over the Internet. Canadian researchers recently looked at about 20 websites found through a simple Google search that claimed to sell stem cell therapies.

Though researchers are continuing to make leaps in new applications for stem cells, the expensive stem cell therapies marketed over the Internet for everything from strokes to allergies are scams.

There are two distinct kinds of stem cells. The first, embryonic stem cells, are the most controversial and are strictly regulated in the United States. The second, adult progenitor stem cells, are taken from the patient themselves. It is unclear from the websites what kind of stem cells they were attempting to market, whether or not they were actually real, or where they had come from.

Though there has yet to be any report of someone being injured by one of these scams, patients should steer clear. For your own safety, do not attempt to undertake serious therapy of any kind without consulting your doctor.

If you have been injured by a defective product, call the Texas trial attorneys at the law office of Cappolino, Dodd & Krebs today.

Two US lawmakers have asked a group of doctors and researchers to disclose the amount financial and other support they have received from five companies that manufacture medical devices.

The manufacturers include Abbot Labs, Medtronic Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, companies that, in the past, have been the subject of defective medical product lawsuits.

The lawmakers, Senators Charles Grassle and Herbert  Kohl, have been looking into the financial ties between doctors and industry. They have sponsored legislation that would force drug companies and device makers to disclose their spending on doctors.

Despite manufacturer claims, the safety of several medical devices, especially heart stents and particularly drug coated stents – is far from established.  Several studies have linked the devices to blood clots and heart attacks.

In fact, a recent study indicated that Medtronic’s Endeavor drug-coated stent was associated with more heart attacks and deadly blood clots than another stent made by Johnson & Johnson.

Faulty medical devices can cause injuries, even death. If you or a loved one has been harmed because of a defective stent or other medical device, contact an attorney for professional insight into developing litigation. This may be the only way for you to recover some of the costs you and your family bear for these mistakes.

A defective drugs attorney has filed an action on behalf of an infant against Glaxo SmithKline in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia.

The infant’s mother was prescribed the antidepressant Paxil during her first trimester by her physician, who was unaware of any warnings that the drug shouldn’t be taken by a woman who is pregnant. The pregnancy proceeded without incident and the baby was delivered at full term.

After leaving the hospital the child began to experience problems and was eventually referred to a pediatric cardiologist. An echocardiogram was performed and the parents were told that the baby had a number of cardiac deformities including severe aoritic stenosis, coarctation of the aortic valve and mitral stenosis.

At only 5 months of age the baby underwent a balloon valvuloplasty to improve blood flow through the aorta. Now, at age five,  this child is scheduled for a another heart operation and will likely have many more before he graduates elementary school.

This family isn’t the only one in this country battling drug manufacturers over adverse side effects. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Glaxo SmithKline claiming that children were born with significant congenital cardiac abnormalities after their mothers used Paxil during pregnancy.

The financial burden of caring for a child or other loved one harmed by defective drugs is enormous. It is important to contact a trained and experienced defective drugs attorney for professional insight into a possible Paxil settlement.

Negative reports keep flooding in regarding Merk & Co. Inc.’s popular vaccine, Gardasil. Gardasil was approved two years ago by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent the spread of human papillomavirus, a virus that is known to cause cervical cancer in a small percentage of the women and girls who contact it.

According to the FDA, Gardasil has been the subject of about 8,000 “adverse event” reports since the drug went on the market. Complaints range from nausea to paralysis and a total of 15 reported deaths. Approximately 16 million American girls and women have been given Gardasil, which has in general been widely supported by schools and other institutions, especially here in Texas.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention contends that none of the reported deaths were due to the receipt of Gardasil, but continues to investigate the negative reports.

The California Pharmacy Board is working towards citing and fining 94 California hospitals and their corresponding head pharmacists for not complying with a recall of the contaminated blood thinner Heparin.

In February, drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare ordered a full recall of Heparin after concerns that the medication was contaminated. They stated that the drug was to be removed from circulation and not administered to patients.

However, in at least 29 of the California cases investigated, hospital pharmacies were thought to still be using the tainted Heparin. While the amounts of the fines are yet to be determined, the hospitals may face fines from both the California Pharmacy Board and the Department of Public Health.

Contaminated heparin is suspected in nearly 100 deaths and many hundreds of injuries over the last year. Several patients have file heparin lawsuits in order to begin recovering damages.

Pfizer’s quit-smoking drug, Chantix, has been removed from the Yokata Air Base pharmacy due to reports of possible adverse symptoms.

Chantix is extremely popular with military personnel, and luckily those at the Yokata Air Force base are not permanently cut off— refills are only suspended until the patient receives renewed approval from his or her physician and opts to continue the medication, at which point the pharmacy will special order the drug.

Though none of the Chantix patients at Yokata have reported any problems with the drug, groups like Public Citizen and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices have been bombarding the Food and Drug Administration with detailed complaints, calling for a black-box suicide warning, the strongest safety alert the FDA can administer.

In the United States, Chantix has been linked to at least 40 suicides and 400 attempted suicides. Other issues supposedly caused by using Chantix include heart rhythm disturbances, movement disorders, glycemic problems like diabetes, and traffic accidents.

If it is true that Chantix is the cause of these adverse reports, the drug was responsible for nearly 1,000 serious injuries just in the fourth quarter of last year. This is more than any other single drug during that same time period.

People who have had an adverse reaction to this or any other drug should consider contacting an experienced Chantix attorney for professional insight.

According to a Bloomberg.com report this week, Byetta® has more problems. The Food and Drug Administration has confirmed four more patients taking the type 2 diabetes drug Byetta® have died from pancreatitis.

That brings the drug-related fatalities to six in the last few months, though the FDA said no definite link between the additional deaths and Byetta® has been proven.

Federal regulators are working with Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly & Co. to develop a stronger warning label for the widely used drug. Regulators stress that patients who exhibit symptoms of pancreatitis should stop taking Byetta right away. Those symptoms include nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Regulators warn that it can be very difficult to tell the difference between acute and less dangerous forms of pancreatitis.

Already, a Virginia man has filed a defective drug lawsuit in a California court alleging Byetta’s manufacturers failed to adequately test and monitor the side effects, and didn’t warn doctors or patients of the risk of developing pancreatitis.

Products marketed as cancer cures are scams. The Food and Drug Administration has identified 23 companies inside the United States and two foreign that have been marketing so-called cancer prevention and cancer curing tablets, extracts, teas, tonics, salves and creams over the internet.

These products contain such homeopathic substances as bloodroot, shark cartilage, coral calcium, cesium, ellagic acid, Cat’s Claw, an herbal tea called Essiac, and various kinds of mushrooms.

Some common marketing pitches include:
• “Treats all forms of cancer.”
• “80% more effective than the world’s number one cancer drug.”
• “Skin cancers disappear.”
• “Target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.”
• “Shrinks malignant tumors.”
• “Avoid painful surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or other conventional treatments.”

None of these products are approved to treat, cure, or prevent cancer. They are simply hoaxes, and dangerous ones at that, since taking off-label medication may interfere with a patient’s legitimate cancer treatment through drug-drug and drug-supplement interactions. Homeopathic products such as those listed above are not regulated like FDA-approved medications are, and may differ dramatically from lot to lot.

If you are self-medicating with any one of these products, consult your doctor immediately.

You can view the complete list of fake cancer cures here:

http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/fakecancercures.htm

In a class action defective drug lawsuit against Pfizer Inc, plaintiffs in Pennsylvania are challenging how drug manufacturers can promote their generic products.

The lawsuit claims that purchasers of the epilepsy drug Neruontin and its generic equivalent, gabapentin, were given as prescriptions for an off-label use. The case states that the drug manufacturer illegally promoted the drug by manipulating medical literature and by using other tactics, and should be liable to consumers who were prescribed generic versions of the drug.

Generic drugs must contain the same active ingredients as the original brand-name drug. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that generic drugs are identical, or the bioequivalent, to the brand name drugs. This means that generics are identical in dose, strength, safety, route of administration, and intended use. Generics are usually available once the patent protections of the original drug have expired.

Good drugs used like this are no better than defective drugs. If you or a loved one has been harmed, it is important that you consult with an expert defective drug attorney for professional insight.