Wrongful Death Lawsuits And Defective Drugs

There is no case that is more extreme for an experienced team of Riverside injury attorneys than a wrongful death lawsuit. When that untimely death is caused by something that is supposed to aid health (such as medicine or drugs) then this makes the representing team of lawyers all the more determined to seek full justice for their clients.

Statistics

The drugs industry is big business and millions of Americans take medications in order to manage medical problems and/or pain. In fact, there are an estimated 82% of us who take at least one drug per week, whether that is a prescription drug or a dietary or vitamin supplement, and around 30 percent who take at least five types of medication in any given weekly period. These figures are according to the Slone Epidemiology Center who did a study on patterns of medical use back in 2004.

The role of the FDA

It goes without saying that the drug manufacturers have a duty of care to the public to provide a product that is safe to use. However according to an experienced Riverside County injury attorney who specializes in this type of case it is fair to suggest that some drugs have been shown to not be fully tested. The fault of the pharmaceutical companies who are under pressure to roll out the drug and subsequently do so before all the information about the safety aspect has been scrutinized. On top of this, some drugs are not fully labelled up with any side effects that may occur when taking the product and in some cases they may also contain other chemicals that may also cause serious injury or worse still, death.

To monitor the drugs industry, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) was set up in 1973. It requires all new drugs submitted by manufacturers to be passed for approval before they hit the stores. In order for the pharmaceutical companies to reach this approval then certain criteria have to be met and these are as follows...

• The manufacturing process of the drug is sufficient enough to preserve the purity, strength and quality of the drug
• The drug does exactly what is proposes to do
• The benefits of the said drug far outweigh the risks
• The packaging and labelling of the product is clear, concise and indeed correct.

This tends to beg the question... if the processes are so rigorously controlled by the FDA, then why are there literally thousands of wrongful death cases each year from prescription drugs and medication? A Riverside injury lawyer explains...

In essence a pharmaceutical company may well have 'omitted' to tell the FDA about important details regarding the drug before or during the approval process. To add to this, there may well have only been a small nucleus of patients involved in the initial testing process that may not have been enough to discover the risks of a drug when eventually given to a much wider patient base. It is important to note that whilst the FDA does indeed provide much needed regulatory compliance within the drug industry, it does not provide a protective legal shield for companies who have rolled out a defective drug. This means that for anyone who has seen the death of a loved one at the hands of a defective drug there are grounds for recourse. Finally it can take years in some cases for problematic side effects to come to light in a defective drug and often by then there are several hundred cases of prolonged illness and wrongful death.

Cases such as these can be notoriously tricky and indeed costly. Pharmaceutical companies are often known for taking cases such as these all the way to court and this is why a class action lawsuit might be the best option. An experienced team of Riverside County injury lawyers will have the ability take on such cases and can fight your corner to maximize each and every claim.

Riverside injury attorneys who are well versed in dealing with such cases are used to litigations involving large corporations and as a result will have the funding in place to pursue a wrongful death claim with the dogged determination that it deserves.