You took Taxotere to treat breast cancer based on your doctor’s recommendation, but without all of the information that you needed to make an educated decision about whether this was the right drug to treat your cancer. While Taxotere has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1996, the drug manufacturer did not warn patients (or doctors) in the United States about the potential risk of permanent baldness (alopecia) until December 2015.

You May Have a Legal Claim If You Suffered Permanent Baldness From Taxotere That You Took Prior to December 2015

Temporary hair loss is an expected side effect of cancer treatment—permanent baldness is not. As you well know, the effects of permanent baldness go well beyond cosmetic concerns. You may suffer significant psychological issues and financial consequences because of your baldness.

It is alleged that Sanofi-Aventis knew about the risk of alopecia before the warning was added to the drug label in the United States in December 2015. Since Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of Taxotere, failed to warn you of the risk that it knew about or should have known about, you may be able to join thousands of other women in multi-district litigation to pursue a recovery for your damages.

How to Pursue a Taxotere Alopecia Case

Sanofi-Aventis is going to aggressively defend itself against the injury claims brought by you and women like you. Accordingly, it is important to work with an experienced drug injury lawyer to make sure that your rights are protected. Your lawyer will make sure that your claim is appropriately filed before the deadline for filing passes, and will zealously advocate for your full and fair recovery.

The first bellwether Taxotere cases will go to trial in 2019 and 2020, according to a Case Management Order from the United States District Court filed in June 2018. Thus, there is still time to contact a lawyer and to take action.

We invite you to begin learning more about your legal options now by downloading a free copy of our report, Taxotere: What You Need to Know About It, and by reaching out to us by phone, text, or through this website at any time to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.

Before you put any energy into pursuing a legal recovery from a pharmaceutical company, you need to know whether you have standing to be a plaintiff in a pharmaceutical injury case.

What Is Standing?

Standing means that you have the legal right to bring a claim in an Iowa court.

Generally, you will have standing if:

• You were physically injured by the medication or medical device.
• You are the legal guardian of someone under the age of 18 or someone whose guardianship has been determined by the court and that person was physically injured by the medication or medical device. In this case, you would have standing to bring a lawsuit on that person’s behalf.
• You are the administrator of an estate and the person who passed away died because of the mediation or medical device. In this case, you have standing to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the estate.

You do not have standing to sue simply because you could have been hurt or you were afraid of being hurt. Instead, you must prove that you have suffered specific and actual injuries.

What Happens If You Don’t Have Standing?

If you file a lawsuit and you don’t have legal standing, then the defendant has the right to file a motion to dismiss with the court. That motion would claim that you lack legal standing to bring a lawsuit. If the defendant’s legal team is correct in its interpretation of the law, then the judge will grant the motion and your case will be over. You will have gone through the effort of bringing a case and you will not recover any financial damages for your efforts.

Thus, it is important to determine whether you have standing before you take action. To learn more about how pharmaceutical class action cases work in Iowa, please browse our website or contact us at any time to schedule your free, no-obligation consultation.

Your time to file a lawsuit is limited. Each state, including Iowa, has what is known as a statute of limitations. This law explains how long you have to file a claim. If you fail to file your case before the statute of limitation expires, then you may be unable to recover damages.

What Does the Law Say?

Iowa Code §614.1(2) provides people who have suffered a personal injury with two years to file a lawsuit. Typically, the statute of limitations begins running on the date that the injury occurred.

There Are Exceptions

As with most legal rules, there are exceptions to the statute of limitations. You may have more than two years from the date on which the injury occurred if:

• You could not have reasonably discovered that you were injured on that date. Some injuries from defective pharmaceutical products are not immediately apparent. In these cases you wouldn’t know that you were hurt until you started to exhibit symptoms of illness or injury. If this applies to you, then your two-year time limit to file a case begins when you knew, or should have known, that you were hurt.
• You were a minor (under the age of 18) when you were hurt. If your parent or guardian failed to take legal action on your behalf then you have either two years from the date of your injury or until your 19th birthday to take action.

What If You Don’t File Within the Required Time?

If you file your case in court after the statute of limitations has expired, then you can expect the experienced attorneys for the pharmaceutical company to motion the court to dismiss your case. If the judge agrees that the time for filing a case has expired, then your case will be dismissed and you will be unable to recover any damages—regardless of the significant injuries that you suffered.

Accordingly, it is important to understand how an Iowa pharmaceutical class action case works as soon as possible. Please browse our website or start a live chat with us today to learn more and to make sure that your rights are protected.

Your son—and you—suffered through the pain of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine when he was a toddler and again before he entered kindergarten. You did it to protect your child from the greater pain of catching one of these uncomfortable and potentially dangerous diseases.

However, now—years after your son received his second dose of the MMR vaccine—he has one of the very diseases that you were trying to prevent.

He Has the Measles

You may be upset and, understandably, disappointed, but you do not have a case against the company that made the vaccine. According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the MMR vaccine is 95 percent effective after the first dose and almost always effective after the second dose. However, it is not 100 percent effective. Some people who get the vaccine may still develop measles if they are exposed to the illness. That does not mean that the vaccine manufacturer was negligent. Additionally, your child did not suffer any additional harm because he received the vaccine. He did not suffer a side effect, nor did the vaccine make the measles worse when he contracted it.

Accordingly, you do not have a potential case against the vaccine maker and you should, instead, work with your child’s doctor to get him the medical care that he needs to recover. You may also want to try to determine the “source” or the person or place where your son was infected, so that action can be taken to prevent further spread of the measles.

Related Links: What Does the FDA Do? What Is Recalls.gov?

Tylenol contains acetaminophen, and reports of serious—and sometimes fatal—acetaminophen overdoses are not new. However, what is new is Johnson & Johnson’s plan to change the warnings on bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol this month and on the packaging of other Tylenol products in the coming months.

It has been reported that Johnson & Johnson is changing labels now because of increased pressure both from lawsuits and from the federal government. Acetaminophen overdoses are said to kill hundreds of people and injures tens of thousands more people every year, though not every death and injury is associated with Tylenol specifically.

The new warnings will reportedly alert Tylenol users to the serious and potentially fatal risks of an acetaminophen overdose. It is important to use Tylenol, and all other medications, as directed.

The vast majority of Tylenol users will not have a need to call a Cedar Rapids class action lawyer, because most people use Tylenol without injury. However, if you have been hurt—or if a loved one has been killed—by a Tylenol overdose, then it may be important to contact a Cedar Rapids class action attorney to discuss your legal rights and your possible recovery.

You can reach an experienced Iowa class action lawyer via this website or by calling 319-731-9009 or 888-807-2752 today. We would be pleased to schedule a FREE initial consultation with you to discuss your specific injuries and possible legal options in more detail.

Related Links: Go Look in Your Medicine Cabinet For Acetaminophen Dangers Now If the FDA knew about the potential dangers of acetaminophen overdoses, why wasn’t my family warned?

Ambien (zolpidem), a popular sleep medication, is one of the top ten drugs found in impaired drivers. However, many of these drivers were not aware that Ambien can cause a car crash risk even after a good night of sleep.

In January of this year, the FDA warned that patients taking Ambien and other zolpidem-containing drugs had a high risk of next day car crashes. The warning came more than 700 reports of next-morning car accidents for patients taking Ambien.

Doctors know that blood levels of Ambien above 50 ng/mL can result in impaired driving behaviors and an increased risk of car accidents. Ambien is supposed to have a short half-life, so it leaves the body quickly. But this isn’t always true. Women sometimes metabolize zolpidem more slowly. When researchers gave 250 men and 250 women 10 mg doses of Ambien, as many as 15 percent of the women and 3 percent of the men still had at least 50 ng/mL of Ambien in their blood after eight hours of sleep. That means that drug levels could be high enough to interfere with alertness and coordination the morning after taking the pill; this might explain the frequency of Ambien car crashes.

Those who took extended-release Ambien CR were even more likely to suffer next day impairment. Among patients who given 12.5 mg doses of Ambien CR, 33 percent of women and 25 percent of men had 50 ng/mL or more of Ambien in their blood 8 hours after taking the medication. Five percent of patients had more blood levels greater than 100 ng/mL.

The FDA recommended that the standard dose of Ambien be reduced in order to prevent Ambien car crashes:

• The recommended dose of Ambien and similar products was reduced from 10 mg to 5 mg for women, and 5 mg or 10 mg for men.
• The recommended dose of extended-release Ambien CR was reduced from 12.5 mg to 6.25 mg for women, and 6.25 mg or 12.5 mg for men.

If you took Ambien and were injured in a car accident the next morning, you may be able to participate in a lawsuit against Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer of the drug. For more information about Iowa Ambien lawsuits, contact the Des Moines pharmaceutical injury attorneys at Hupy and Abraham at 888-807-2752.