Fort Lauderdale Injury Attorney – Accutane Off the Market
Broward injury attorney Andrew Alitowski has learned that Roche, the pharmaceuticals company that manufactures Accutane, has decided to take the drug off the market on its own accord. The company cited the high cost of defending personal injury lawsuits, as well as the competition from generic competitors, when revealing its decision. The announcement sent shockwaves through the medical community, which has relied on the drug as a last resort to treat forms of acne that were essentially incurable prior to its introduction.
Accutane is a prescription drug designed to treat cystic acne, says Fort Lauderdale injury lawyer Alitowski. It first became available in 1982. Although the company insists that Accutane was not removed from the market because it is unsafe, Roche has recently lost at least six personal injury cases related to the drug, most or all worth millions of dollars. Recently, a jury awarded plaintiffs over $30 million in damages in a single lawsuit.
Accutane is widely recognized for causing birth defects and the manufacturers have gone to great lengths to warn patients against taking it while pregnant, says Broward injury attorney Alitowski. However, other side effects are less publicized. The drug has recently been linked to depression, joining a list of other drugs now known to affect mental health, especially in young people. Likewise, many plaintiffs have claimed that Accutane caused them to develop an inflammatory bowel problem, and that they were insufficiently warned of this possibility when they began taking the prescription medication. One man in Pennsylvania claims that Accutane was a factor in the murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend: when he committed the crime, he says it was through the haze of a deep depression that was caused or exacerbated by his Accutane regimen.
Now, however, a generic version of the drug is available, and consumers are purchasing Accutane in very small numbers compared to the generics. Further, Accutane has already been taken off of the market in numerous other industrialized countries, including France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Spain, and Portugal.
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