Articles Tagged with Risperdal

“Off-Label” Drug Use: Pursuing Profits at the Expense of Safety?

Published on: February 17, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Let me state the obvious: companies sell you stuff with one purpose in mind, to make money. McDonald’s doesn’t sell you quarter pounders because the company believes what you need to live a better life is to eat more quarter pounders. The NRA doesn’t advocate gun ownership because it believes you need to own five Glock 9s (you don’t), but rather so the gun makers can sell more guns. Mercedes doesn’t make expensive cars because its board of directors hope to improve the world by selling you cars with heated leather seats. Every company sets out first to last to make money. And the more money the better.

So it goes with pharmaceutical companies. The general public may sleepwalk through the concept and lazily presume that the primary motivation for drug companies is to develop medications which cure diseases or which minimize the suffering from diseases. But in fact the motivation for pharmaceutical companies is to make money, and a lot of it. This is rather obvious and not a controversial point, and I’d like to believe that every “BigPharma” corporate board would agree with me. But it helps to keep this profit motive in mind when doing research on drugs you have been prescribed or which you are currently taking. And to be hyper-vigilant about assessing any new “wonder drugs” which hit the market.

“Off-Label” Drug Promotion

Risperdal: Two Recent (and Very Different) Case Results

Published on: January 13, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Causation is usually simple: this happened because of that. The wheel fell off my bicycle, causing me to fall and break my arm. Legal causation is not so simple, and it can be very difficult to prove in a civil case. Legal causation or “proximate cause” involves an event (or thing) which is sufficiently related to an injury such that the cause of the event or thing is held legally liable for injuries sustained. It may not sound all that complicated, but millions of attorney hours are spent each year fighting over proximate cause. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons we have courthouses.

Of all the bad drug results you read about, you would think proving legal causation in a Risperdal case would be straightforward: a boy with autism or psychological issues is prescribed Risperdal; after a period of months or years on the drug, he begins to grow female breasts, a condition known as gynecomastia. Boys should not grow female breasts. It is extremely rare for an adolescent boy not taking Risperdal to grow female breasts. And studies have shown that Risperdal can cause gynecomastia. Ergo (sorry, I’ve been wanting to get that word in a post), if a boy is taking Risperdal, and fifteen months later grows female breasts, it should follow that the Risperdal caused the gynecomastia. And that the manufacturers of the drug should pay for the physical injury, the emotional trauma, and any other suffering.

But it doesn’t always work that way. Two recent court cases involving boys injured after taking Risperdal yielded two very different results, and the takeaway is the importance of medical experts who can testify to the connection of the injury (gynecomastia) to the cause (taking Risperdal).

Risperdal Trial Ends in $70 Million Award for Boy Who Grew Breasts

Published on: July 14, 2016 | By Clay Hodges

On July 1, 2016 a jury in Philadelphia sent a very loud and angry message to Johnson & Johnson. After a lengthy trial, the jury awarded a young boy who grew breasts after taking the drug Risperdal a staggering $70,000,000.00. This verdict is far and away the largest money judgment awarded (yet) to a victim of the drug Risperdal. As one of the attorneys representing the disfigured child stated, “this verdict is a game-changer.” I think he is right.

But let’s back up.

What is Risperdal?

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