Imagine being unable to stop smacking your lips, making faces or sticking out your tongue. How about constant blinking or moving your eyes, arms, legs or fingers? If you’ve taken Reglan and this happened to you, you could have Tardive Dyskinesia. It’s a side effect that is rarely reversible. Although there is no known cure, some symptoms may diminish once victims are off the drug.
In February 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) slapped a “Black Box Warning” on Reglan, the strongest alert it can put on a medication. It also ordered Reglan’s manufacturer, Wyeth, to display the Black Box warning on prescriptions for Reglan and develop a medication guide for patients that discusses the risk. The federal agency also warned that Reglan should not be taken in large doses or for more than three months.
Reglan is the brand name of metoclopramide, a drug used to treat GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease), a severe form of heartburn and related conditions, including heartburn in diabetics (diabetic gastro paresis). Metoclopramide prevents nausea and vomiting by moving food faster through the digestive tract. Teva Pharmaceuticals, Pliva, Pharma and Baxter Healthcare sell generic equivalents of Reglan.
Reglan has also been prescribed for infants with symptoms of vomiting or esophageal reflux and pregnant women. But seniors, especially elderly women, seem to be the most vulnerable to Tardive Dyskinesia when taking Reglan.
It’s estimated that 60 million Americans have heartburn. For 25 million in the United States, heartburn is an everyday event. Attorney Jim Alder advises anyone taking Reglan, or one of its generic equivalents to contact their doctor immediately and then seek legal advice. Tardive Dyskenisia is a drug-induced disability that can cause life-long suffering.
We’ve all been led to believe that medical journals only publish studies that safeguard our health. Turns out, the journals and the public have been duped, according to court papers released in July by personal injury lawyers who are suing Wyeth, a company that manufactured drugs for hormone replacement therapy. Wyeth is now facing 8,400 lawsuits from women who claimed the drug caused their illnesses.
A story in The New York Times on August 5, 2009 broke the news about the ghostwritten articles. It revealed that many of them, published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005, “emphasized the benefits of hormone replacement therapy and de-emphasized” their risks.
According to the paper, Wyeth paid a medical communications firm to write the articles and submit them to doctors who then attached their own names to the articles, making it appear that they were the authors.
By 2001, Wyeth’s sales of Premarin and Prempro had soared to nearly $2 billion. But the very next year, a huge federal study on hormone therapy was halted after researchers found it increased the risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke in postmenopausal women who took the drugs.
Doctors have been able to rely on medical journals for information about drugs before prescribing them. While Wyeth defends its drugs and the articles written about them as being well researched and medically sound, it’s clear that the company worked with ghost writers to maintain market dominance of the Premarin family of drugs, among its best selling brands.
While medical journals may be called into question as unimpeachable sources now that the ghostwriters’ role has been revealed, victims can rely on personal injury lawyers to press their claims
It’s easy. Run a red light! Of course, you may not live to see yourself on video. And you may kill someone else. But hey, fame has a price.
Seriously, folks, the tremendous impact of these videos will change your mind about running red lights no matter how late you are for an appointment or how long you’ve been waiting at an intersection for your turn to drive on. They will curl your hair. All of them were shot by cameras installed at intersections in major cities. And they’re nothing to scoff at. According to the Federal Highway Administration, drivers are more likely to be killed or injured in red-light running crashes than in any other kind of accident. And red-light accidents are on the rise nationwide.
Try typing this into a tiny device with your thumbs at 60 miles an hour while you drive. Or even 30 miles an hour. No wonder texting while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.
Actually, it’s far riskier than anyone imagined. A new study released this July by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute measured the time that drivers had to take their eyes off the road to send or receive text messages. The drivers they tested make this news even scarier.
One hundred long haul truck drivers, in trucks that researchers rigged with cameras that recorded them while they drove, showed that drivers had their eyes off the road for nearly five seconds while texting. That’s enough time at highway speeds to cover the length of a football field. Researchers say the results are typical of anyone who texts behind the wheel of any vehicle. The study was commissioned by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. According to CTIA, The International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry, “texters” sent 110 billion messages last year. Polling data from the AAA Foundation for Safety shows that 87% of people consider texting behind the wheel of a car dangerous yet many admit they do it anyway.
Imagine being unable to stop smacking your lips, making faces or sticking out your tongue. How about constant blinking or moving your eyes, arms, legs or fingers? If you’ve taken Reglan and this happened to you, you could have Tardive Dyskinesia. It’s a side effect that is rarely reversible. Although there is no known cure, some symptoms may diminish once victims are off the drug.
We’ve all been led to believe that medical journals only publish studies that safeguard our health. Turns out, the journals and the public have been duped, according to court papers released in July by personal injury lawyers who are suing Wyeth, a company that manufactured drugs for hormone replacement therapy. Wyeth is now facing 8,400 lawsuits from women who claimed the drug caused their illnesses.
Try typing this into a tiny device with your thumbs at 60 miles an hour while you drive. Or even 30 miles an hour. No wonder texting while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.
