Famous Dangerous Drug Recalls and Cases – What to Know

                                                                                         

When you purchase or are given a prescription, you have the right to reasonably expect it to be safe. This means that the drug has been thoroughly tested prior to being made available to the public. Often the testing is not thorough enough, resulting in drugs being recalled after people have already used them.

One of the most famous dangerous drug recalls involved a drug which was widely known as Thalidomide. Between 1957 and 1961, thalidomide was used by pregnant women in many countries around the world. This drug, which had not been adequately tested for safety, was presumed to reduce the occurrence or severity of morning sickness in pregnant women. This lack of safety standards was made clear when it was discovered that the thalidomide had caused serious birth defects in thousands of babies whose mothers had taken it during their pregnancies.

A weight-loss drug known as Fen-Phen was one of the more recent famous drug recalls. After it was concluded that Fen-Phen occasionally led to pulmonary hypertension and cardiac valvular dysfunction, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had it taken off the market. Unfortunately, many people developed these conditions as a result of using Fen-Phen. This particular drug had never been approved by the FDA. It had been prescribed solely at the discretion of the patients’ physicians.

Vioxx is another recent example of a dangerous drug recall. Although Vioxx did meet with the FDA’s approval as a treatment for arthritis, it was later found that high doses or long term use of Vioxx contributed to incidents of stroke and heart attack. The manufacturer of Vioxx, Merck and Co., took the drug off the market five years after it had been approved for use. At present, lawsuits against Merck and Co. are still continuing.

Although product safety standards, including testing, are observed much more diligently than in the past, it is clear that more must be done. Not only will it reduce the numbers of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies, it will also reduce the risks to patients’ lives ad long term health if all drugs are thoroughly tested for every aspect of safety before making them available to the public.

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