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Defective Drugs And Research Bias

Our firm represents many Alabama clients who suffered serious personal injury from drugs and medical devices. Our current cases in 2013 include claims involving the diabetes drug Actos and transvaginal mesh. If you want to see our current focus on defective products, you can read detailed reports under the Hot Topics section of the Blackwell Law Firm website. When we begin researching a drug or device, I will typically write a report for this section of our website. So, it is regularly updated to include only current topics.

We follow a different philosophy or approach with drug and device cases. Our approach is different than the mass advertising firms you see and hear on television and social media. Those firms typically approach claims by casting a wide net begging for calls. Their approach is to sign-up everything, see what happens, and settle a volume of claims. What is our approach? We focus only on a few products at a time. We know our clients. We work our cases. Why do we limit our approach to only a few products at a time? We want to study these products and gain expertise in their science.

I recently viewed an interesting discussion on an issue important in the medical research. The issue — Why are negative medical tests often concealed or not published? Many consumers (and even doctors) do not realize the extent of research bias. In most cases, your doctor is relying on the directions and warnings approved by the FDA. When the underlying tests are biased (because negative results were omitted), the doctor’s information is not reliable. When it comes to tests, negative results are very important to patient safety.

In our current cases such as Actos, investigations have raised significant concerns the manufacturer Takeda concealed tests. After also studying the materials and research into transvaginal mesh implants, it’s hard to understand how these products were ever approved by the FDA for mass-implantation in women.

In the following video, the speaker talks about “publication bias” which he describes as the failure to publish negative test results. The speaker describes how this failure raises serious medical and safety concerns. As patients, we need to know whether a medication or medical device may be dangerous. Here is the video:

Our system does not encourage researchers to publish important negative results. Our system does not encourage real study or debate over drug safety. Instead, drug companies pay researchers huge sums of money. Sometimes, they directly pay prescribing doctors huge sums of money. In return, the system works to approve drugs without a good picture of potential safety concerns. Drug makers harvest huge profits at the expense of patient injury and death. By the time safety concerns become known, it’s too late for the many people hurt by a dangerous drug or product. Sometimes, the dangerous defects in these products are only revealed years later after hundreds or thousands of patients suffered personal injury or death. These patients are our family members and neighbors. We deserve better from our FDA and medical professionals.