In the early 1990s, actor James Marshall was on top of the world. He’d starred in revolutionary TV series Twin Peaks and also starred in Oscar-nominated military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, alongside top-billed Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

Then Marshall’s career hit a roadblock: He began suffering serious digestive disorders caused by his using the acne treatment medication Accutane.

Like millions of Americans, he’d trusted that Roche Pharmaceuticals provided a safe product. He — and they — were wrong. Roche knew that Accutane caused major health problems, but sold it anyway, to the tune of over $1 billion in annual profits.

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A Dallas suburb’s mayor and her daughter are dead, and fentanyl pain patches found in the aftermath — while not blamed — have drawn attention to the powerful narcotic.

A medical examiner’s autopsy report was just released in the deaths of Coppell, TX Mayor Jayne Peters, 55, and daughter Corinne Peters, 19.  Both were found dead of gunshots at their home on July 13. The daughter’s death was ruled a homicide by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office, while the mother’s death was deemed “consistent” with being a “self-inflicted act.”

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The term “drug wars” often refers to violent cartels which bully, bribe and slaughter in the name of  illegal drug profits. But another drug war is assailing America, and no machine guns are used. Rather, it’s a war inflicted by huge pharmaceutical companies — often foreign-based — which knowingly sell deadly, defective drugs for years while reaping monstrous profits.

Take GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical giant whose negligence with deadly drugs seems to know no limits. GSK’s latest revealed outrage concerns diabetes medication Avandia, which carries a high risk of causing heart attacks. According to a recent New York Times investigation, GSK knew of this risk for 11 years yet covered it up, continuing to peddle its defective drug even though people were dying as a result.

In short, GSK knew it was killing people and did so anyway, all in the name of money.

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For years, millions of Americans took Accutane as a means to fight severe acne. Though this medication was effective as an acne treatment, it also backfired. Now many Americans face Accutane injuries, including severe gastrointestinal ailments such as UC, or Ulcerative Colitis, and Crohn’s Disease.

Accutane also has been known to cause depression and suicidal impulses in some users, as well as birth defects in the infants of women who were pregnant while using Accutane.

The defective drug’s maladies have become so widespread that they were acknowledged recently on hit Fox TV show Glee. In it, the character of high school cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester, played by Jane Lynch, spoke of Accutane causing hearing loss. Hearing loss, in fact, is another Accutane side effect, along with ringing in the ears.

With so many Accutane ailments, Americans need a means to redress their Accutane injury or illness. And they have one: an Accutane lawsuit. Such legal action can seek financial compensation from the manufacturers whose negligence harmed innocent Americans.

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London-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has agreed to pay a $520 million fine exacted by the U.S. Department of Justice for illegally marketing antipsychotic drug Seroquel by overstating the drug’s purposes and failing to alert users of its health risks.

Does all this sound familiar? If so, it should. In just three years, that makes four enormous pharmaceutical companies which have paid large fines for illegally marketing antipsychotic drugs, which for them is a hugely profitable arena.

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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.

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For huge pharmaceutical companies which make huge profits, settling a defective drugs lawsuit for millions of dollars may be considered a satisfactory trade-off given such drugs’  billions of dollars in revenues. In fact, some pharmaceutical giants even market drugs which are known to be dangerous, content with a bottom-line strategy of profits at any costs — even human ones.

It’s not known if GlaxoSmithKline PLC of London, England is guilty of such malice when it comes to birth defects caused by its defective drug Paxil. In fact, though a Philadelphia, PA jury in October awarded $2.5 million in compensatory damages to a couple whose child had heart problems after his mother took Paxil during pregnancy, that same jury did not award punitive damages for malice.

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Statistically, young women are among the least likely persons to have high blood pressure, heart attacks, blood clots, strokes and other cardiovascular ailments. Yet many American women are suffering in these ways — and even dying. That’s because they are users of one of three defective drugs sold as birth control pills: Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella.

Fortunately, these three brands are the only oral contraceptives which share the drug DRSP, or drospirenone. That drug has been known to cause serious health problems in the heart and kidneys, and also to cause breast lumps, numbness, depression, confusion, vision problems, migraine headaches and pulmonary embolism.

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A year and a half ago, the heparin overdose of actor Dennis Quaid’s twins was big news. The legal settlement just announced in the case isn’t as big of a news story to most media, but it’s also very significant.

The Associated Press reports that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has offered a $500,000 settlement in the case, which the Quaids have accepted. Half of that money will go to each of the twins: Zoe Grace and Thomas Boone. Also, Cedars-Sinai will pay for any additional medical care the Quaid twins ever need related to their injury, though they seem to have recovered.

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Americans don’t like being at anyone’s mercy, but that’s clearly the case with the pharmaceutical giants which create and sell drugs to millions of us, making billions of dollars in the process. Such drugs aren’t always fully vetted by such corporations or by government watchdog the Food and Drug Administration. As a result, many innocent victims can suffer injury and even death — all because they took a prescribed medication.

One such risky remedy is Reglan, the brand name often given to digestive-aid drugs featuring metoclopramide. Other brands with the drug include Maxolon and Octamide.

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