Saturday 1 December 2018

Just When Are Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Going To Be Banned?

Today's short post from arentzlaw.com (see link below) illustrates the power and influence drug companies have over our health. When we're ill, we go to the doctor and are prescribed a medication to help reduce or remove the condition. The premise is always that we can trust that medication not to do us harm instead of good. As patients, we have no choice but to believe that a medicine is designed to make us better. It's obscenely immoral then when drug companies hide the truth about their products in order to make vast profits. This article returns to an old favourite here on the blog and that is the dangers presented by fluoroquinolone antibiotics to people both with and prone to, nerve damage (neuropathy). It describes how a new lawsuit against Bayer pharmaceuticals, claims that Bayer deliberately hid the dangers of these antibiotics, leading to countless people suffering from irreversible neuropathy. You need to read the article and possibly use the Search button here on the blog to research others on the same subject. The years go by and still these drugs are issued in vast amounts but the power the drug companies have enables them to escape or postpone punishment. In the meantime, more and more people suffer nerve damage as a result of taking antibiotics they should be able to trust. No wonder we all become irreversibly cynical!!!


Cipro Lawsuit Alleges Bayer Actively Concealed Irreversible Peripheral Neuropathy Risks
By Emily Cox
June 27, 2018

A new Cipro lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare and Merck & Co. over the healthcare behemoths aggressively concealing the antibiotic’s significant risks of causing rapidly onset and irreversible peripheral neuropathy.

Kathryn Collier filed the complaint earlier this month in the Northern District of California. Collier indicates that she was prescribed Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) in April 2011. After taking the potent antibiotic, she began suffering symptoms of peripheral neuropathy and was subsequently diagnosed with the disorder. Collier continues to suffer from the condition to this day.

Cipro is part of the controversial antibiotic drug class of fluoroquinolones (FLQs). FLQs have long been associated with serious side effects. Consequently, the FDA has removed many FQLs from the U.S. market due to unacceptable risks of certain side effects. For example, the regulatory agency yanked Omniflox (temafloxacin) in June 1992 within six months of its approval due to low blood sugar, kidney failure and a rare form of anemia. The FDA removed Trovan (trovafloxacin) from the market in June 1999 due to severe liver toxicity. The list goes on and on with several of the drugs being recalled due to QT-interval prolongation. Cipro is far from immune from serious side effects despite Bayer’s assertions to the contrary. 


Cipro Lawsuit Alleges Bayer Knew About Peripheral Neuropathy Risks

Collier alleges that Bayer and Merck knew that Cirpo could cause chronic or permanent peripheral neuropathy soon after receiving FDA approval in 1987. By 1988, the drug companies possessed at least one published case report that constituted a safety “signal” that FLQs were associated with a form of peripheral nerve damage known as peripheral paraethesia and that further investigation and study were necessary to protect patients. Since then, numerous other studies have affirmed this connection.

However, Cipro’s warning label from September 2004 to August 2013 deliberately misled and deceived the public and medical community to believe that peripheral neuropathy from FLQs was rare. During this time, the Cipro label also omitted any mention that these irreversible injuries could develop after taking as few as one or two Cipro pills. Furthermore, despite the permanent, severe, and debilitating nature of the disease, manufacturers buried the language regarding the “rare” risk of peripheral neuropathy at the bottom of an extensive list of adverse reactions and in no way highlighted the risk to help patients make informed decisions regarding their care.

Bayer and Merck continued to push the envelope regarding patient health and safety. In a bid to expand Cipro’s indications and market share, they began re-branding the highly-potent FLQ as first-line treatment for mild conditions that safer antibiotics could easily treat without the debilitating side effects associated with Cipro. Consequently, FLQs became the most prescribed antibiotic in America for a time despite FDA’s limited indications for the drug.

Collier’s Cipro lawsuit joins hundreds of other FLQ claims pending against manufacturers. These lawsuits all allege that drug makers actively hid substantial risk factors associated with their medications to protect profits at the expense of patient safety. Like Collier, most of the current claims involve individuals developing irreversible peripheral neuropathy from the powerful and dangerous antibiotics.


https://arentzlaw.com/defective-drug/cipro-lawsuit-peripheral-neuropathy/

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