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 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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Chances are, you place your trust in pharmaceutical products. Chances are, when you got an MRA or MRI exam, you thought you were getting results which would help you. You thought your MRI or MRA would  pinpoint internal problems and boost your health, thanks to use of an intravenous contrast dye. But if that dye was gadolinium-based, you may have thought wrong.

That’s because gadolinium used in a gadolinium MRI or MRA exam is injuring countless Americans. No, it doesn’t harm everyone. But it can prove seriously damaging to those with pre-existing kidney ailments. In fact, it can spark a potentially life-threatening condition: NSF, or Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis, also known as NFD, or Nephrogenic Fibrosing Dermopathy.

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Your car was just rear-ended by a distracted motorist blabbing on his cell phone and now — through no fault of your own — you’ve got bills to pay for damages. What time is it? It’s HAMMER TIME.

You’ve waited months for your insurance company to make good on its policy and pay for your property damage after Hurricane Ike or some other calamity — and now you’re still waiting. What time is it? It’s HAMMER TIME.

Your child was injured in a Yamaha Rhino accident when the ATV rolled over on a flat surface due to manufacturer design negligence, and now she faces surgery. What time is it? It’s HAMMER TIME.

Your loved one suffered a near-fatal overdose of powerful narcotic fentanyl from a defective Duragesic pain patch, and now requires special care. What time is it? It’s HAMMER TIME.

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Pharmaceutical giants took a huge hit Wednesday, while American consumers won an enormous victory, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Wyeth vs. Levine. And now, justice can be done.

The 6-3 Supreme Court decision held that pharmaceutical companies cannot be shielded from liability because the Food and Drug Administration or other federal agencies erred in approving their drugs, and such companies can be sued in state courts.

Wyeth vs. Levine involved Vermont musician Diana Levine, who lost her right forearm after she was injured in 2000 via injection of Wyeth’s drug Phenergan, an anti-nausea medication which was used to treat her migraine headache.

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If you are among the one million Americans who still take the brand name drug Avandia, you may want to join many others who have stopped taking it. That’s because yet another study of rosiglitazone, the drug used in Avandia, again has been shown to increase death rates in patients, particularly elderly patients with diabetes.

A new study by Harvard Medical School researchers, as reported this week in The New York Times, found that patients who took rosiglitazone had 15 per cent higher death rates than those who took pioglitazone, a comparable drug. The study also found a 13 per cent higher incidence of congestive heart failure in those taking rosiglitazone.

Both drugs are taken by persons with diabetes to help control their body sugar by enhancing their sensitivity to insulin, and the drugs often are taken along with other diabetes medicine. One goal is to enable patients to fend off taking insulin.

The trade-off is that both rosiglitazone and pioglitazone have been found to be dangerous by some researchers, including those who conducted a major study for the New England Journal of Medicine released last year.

The European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the American Diabetes Association both have eliminated rosiglitazone from their recommended treatments for type 2 diabetes. Also, consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen has urged the Food and Drug Administration to band rosiglitazone, not only for the heart problems it causes, but also because it may produce vision impairment, liver failure and other maladies.

Meanwhile, an estimated one million Americans continue to take rosiglitazone, often in the form of the brand name drug Avandia. If you are one of them, and if you have suffered any harmful effects as a result, contact a physician immediately. Then notify an Avandia lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates.

An experienced pharmaceutical lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates also offers a free case review.

Call an Avandia attorney with Jim S. Adler & Associates today at 1-800-505-1414 or fill out the firm’s online form for a free case review. Then launch the process of gaining your full and just financial recovery for your medical bills, your lost wages and your pain and suffering due to negative side effects of Avandia.

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