Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Drug company pays millions to victims


GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is paying a $41 million fine for selling contaminated drugs all over the United States.

A GSK plant in Puerto Rico made the drugs  between 2001 and 2004. They include the anti–nausea drug Kytril, the antibiotic ointment Bactroban, the anti-depressant Paxil CR and the diabetes drug Avandamet. The plant where the contaminated drugs were made was closed in 2009.

In some cases, pills of different strengths were put in the same bottle. In others, pills of different types were packaged together.  And in some cases, the medications were simply contaminated. (more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Seizure drugs Depakote, Topamax may trigger serious birth defects


What’s one of the worst things a family can hear about their new baby? “Your baby has a birth defect.” Yet this too often happens in America, and not due to the luck of a genetic draw. Rather, it happens because large pharmaceutical companies place profits ahead of safety and sell defective drugs to unsuspecting Americans.

Two such drugs are seizure medications Depakote and Topamax. They can be used to fend off migraine headaches and epilepsy. But if taken while a woman is pregnant, especially during her first trimester, they can cause devastating and costly birth defect injuries.

What kinds of injuries? Consider spina bifida, in which the baby’s spinal canal and backbone do not close properly prior to birth. After Depakote use by a pregnant woman, her baby faces a risk 12 times higher than normal of suffering this birth defect.

(more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Supermodel Porizkova learns pitfalls of antidepressant Lexapro — as have families with birth defects


Supermodel Paulina Porizkova wrote a thoughtful, intelligent, persuasive essay for today’s Huffington Post titled “Ending a Midlife Affair With Meds.” The med she mentioned was Lexapro, an antidepressant she started taking to fend off anxiety attacks at age 40.

The wife of musician Ric Ocasek (The Cars) and a former participant on Dancing With the Stars and America’s Next Top Model, Czech-born Porizkova indeed found solace. After several months of taking Lexapro, her anxiety and fears quieted. She also learned that many of her midlife female friends took antidepressants, too — too many, in fact. What was going on?

The trade-off for Porizkova was a malaise — a sense of not caring about anything. “I felt emotionally Botoxed,” she said. “What did I really feel like?” (more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Heart, lung, brain and other Paxil birth defects plague America’s newborn infants


A child’s birth can be a couple’s most glorious moment. But imagine when that moment is marred by learning their newborn infant suffers birth defects. That’s what is happening to many Americans after a mother-to-be took antidepressant Paxil during pregnancy.

This defective drug has been shown to cause dozens of birth defects, from heart, lung and brain ailments to defects of the spinal cord, digestive tract, urinary tracts, abdominal wall and limbs.

Some birth defects occur naturally and may be hereditary. Paxil birth defects do not. Paxil birth defects are directly caused by a defective drug taken during pregnancy.

(more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Paxil implicated in birth defects


You’re pregnant!

Immediately a warning should flick on in your brain like a giant electric sign on Times Square: DON’T TAKE PAXIL.

This antidepressant can cause serious birth defects – bad news for moms trying to cope with mood swings caused by fluctuating hormonal levels in early pregnancy. What’s worse, the  news that Paxil is associated with these birth defects hasn’t had much publicity.

(more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Dangerous acne treatment easily available on Internet


A quick google search of the Internet turns up lots of websites selling Accutane in spite of federal warnings about the powerful drug. One site, with the unforgettable web address of “cheap pills,” has a brief two-line description of the acne treatment drug, followed by a lengthy price sheet offering Accutane pills in varying amounts with no reference to the drug’s side effects.

All this, despite a Food and Drug Administration website that warns against buying Accutane over the Internet because of the drug’s 15 serious side effects, including two life-long diseases of the gut with the potential to kill those who develop them after taking it.

(more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Paxil birth defects spur defective drug lawsuits


Across America, innocent children are suffering because a giant pharmaceutical corporation was negligent. That would be British-based GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK, whose antidepressant known as Paxil has been found to cause Paxil birth defects in the infants of women who took the defective drug during pregnancy.

Paxil even could affect a newborn’s life if the mother starts taking it while breast-feeding her child. Thus, Paxil and babies do not mix. Yet GSK hasn’t concerned itself with such dangers while reaping up to $1 billion in sales of the defective drug in a single year.

(more…)


Archive for the 'birth defects' Category

Paxil side effects, surgeries can spur a Paxil birth defects lawsuit


Many American women have taken antidepressant drug Paxil during their pregnancy. Now many American newborn children are suffering birth defects as a result. Since 2005 Paxil has been shown to have serious side effects in newborn babies, including ailments of the heart, brain, spinal cord, lungs and other vital organs. Such Paxil side effects injuries often require surgery or even repeated surgeries to correct.

That’s a high price to pay for the negligence of a pharmaceuticals giant such as Paxil creator GlaxoSmithKline of London, England. GSK reaps almost $1 billion per year in Paxil sales in America alone, and that huge amount is only about 2 per cent of its total annual drug sales. Meanwhile, American children are suffering horribly due to Paxil side effects injuries.

(more…)