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Seroxat users contact law firm
Added: (Wed Sep 07 2005)
28 August 2005 By Susan Mitchell
Dozens of Irish people who took the anti-depressant drug Seroxat have contacted a Dublin solicitor with a view to launching legal proceedings against pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.
Solicitor Raymond Bradley of Dublin-based Malcolmson Law, which represented haemophiliacs at the Lindsay Tribunal, said his office had been contacted by Seroxat users who claimed to have experienced adverse effects.
The calls have come after a recent report claimed that users of the drugs had an increased rate of suicide attempts, but that GlaxoSmithKline had suppressed clinical trial results.
Official figures suggest that around 300,000 patients are prescribed anti-depressants in the Republic each year. Seroxat is one of the most commonly prescribed of these drugs. Experts have already warned against the use of such drugs, known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), for children and adolescents due to an increased risk of suicidal thoughts.
The latest study suggested these warnings should also be extended to adults. It said GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, did not submit its original data from clinical trials to regulators.
Bradley said he was “concerned that many pharmaceutical companies do not appear to fully inform people about the side-effects of the medicines they are taking'‘.
This meant that many patients could be taking drugs without giving “complete and informed consent'‘, he said.
Last year, GlaxoSmithKline reached a settlement with New York law enforcer Eliot Spitzer who launched a legal action over Seroxat - called Paxil in the US - and its links to suicidal tendencies in children.
Spitzer had accused Glaxo of covering up studies, but the company claimed that the charges were unfounded.
Glaxo subsequently agreed to publish clinical studies into the safety of all its medicines.
A spokeswoman for the Irish Medical Board (IMB) said it had received “504 suspected adverse reaction reports where Seroxat is either the only suspect drug, a co-suspect drug or is involved in a suspected interaction'‘. Seroxat was first authorised for a licence in Ireland in 1991. Irish product information on Seroxat contains warnings regarding risks of self-harm and suicidal feelings.
It advises users to monitor these symptoms, particularly in the early stages of treatment.
The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) supports GlaxoSmithKline's claims that the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. The IMB said it had no plans to withdraw the product from the market.
A GlaxoSmithKline spokesman said that the company was not aware of any active lawsuits in Ireland, but said it had been in contact with legal teams representing potential claimants in Britain.
GlaxoSmithKline claimed that the report only covered ‘selective' studies. The pharmaceutical giant said it still endorsed Seroxat as a treatment for depression.
The pharmaceutical sector has been under close scrutiny since a US court awarded $253 million in damages to a Texan widow nine days ago after finding the anti-arthritis drug, Vioxx, responsible for the death of her husband.
Merck, the pharmaceutical giant that manufactured Vioxx, now faces more than 5,000 individual and class-action suits worldwide. Merck initially vowed to fight every case, but late last week, a spokeswoman said the company would take a close look at certain cases.
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