All Topics

• Numerous Inquiries About Chantix

  Scott Kappes | October 03, 2007 10:49 AM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  I have been writing over Chantix for just about a month now and our law firm has received dozens of inquiries about Chantix form patients claiming bizarre side effects. Just yesterday we were contacted by a couple that took the drug together and both experienced such bad side effects, including but not limited to suicidal ideation, that they had to stop taking the medication. I saw a report...

• Gadolinium Contrast Agents Get "Black Box" Warning

  Scott Kappes | October 01, 2007 10:33 AM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  Friday the FDA finalized the its announcement made in May that it would add the "black box" warnings to gadolinium based contrast agents used to enhance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These contrast agents have been linked to rare skin disease known as nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF). This is very serious disease characterized by the thickening of the skin and even internal tissue and...

• Medicine is extending lives but not for diabetic women

  Robert Binstock | June 19, 2007 10:37 AM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  Advances in medical care over the last three decades have reduced heart disease and extended lives but not for women with diabetes. For men and non-diabetic women, death rates from 1971 to 2000 dropped significantly, but no decline was seen for women with diabetes, a new analysis of federal data finds.It was found that heart disease for everyone, but women with diabetes, steadily declined. The...

• Merck's Vioxx successor being reviewed by FDA

  Lindsay Bauer | April 20, 2007 3:20 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  Merck has created a successor to its now defunct drug Vioxx. The new nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) is called Arcoxia. Like Vioxx, Arcoxia is a Cox-2 inhibitor and was developed to treat osteoarthritis, but be gentler on the stomach then other drugs. On Tuesday, April 10, 2007 FDA advisers discussed the safety of Arcoxia as they attempted to determine if the new drug should be...

• Proposed guidelines provide experimental drugs to critically ill

  Christen Wiese | December 11, 2006 5:53 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  Revised federal guidelines have been proposed to the FDA regarding experimental drugs being given to the seriously ill. The revised guidelines will lay out the specifics regarding when the drugs will be given and also provide if and when the drug companies could charge for the experimental drug. Since the 1970's the FDA has made experimental drugs available to large groups of people or...

• Federal Advisers say Celebrex for kids: OKAY.

  Allison Snoddy | December 04, 2006 5:48 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  On November 29, 2006 Federal advisers recommended that Pfizer Inc. can market their painkiller Celebrex to children with rheumatoid arthritis. The Food and drug Administration now is faced with making a decision of whether they will expand the approval of Celebrex.The advisers said that the benefit's outweighed the risks in a 15 to 1 vote. Celebrex is also a Cox 2 inhibitor drug along with...

• Celebrex to be Considered for Use in the Treatment of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

  Tiffany Farr | December 01, 2006 3:20 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  On November 29, 2006, an FDA panel voted in favor of approving the Cox-2 inhibitor, Celebrex, for the treatment of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Extremely debilitating, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis affects between 30,000 to 60,000 children in the United States alone. To this date, the only medications available to children for this condition were naproxen, ibuprofen, and aspirin.Celebrex, the...

• The Ugly Truth About Tort Reform

  Allison Snoddy | October 30, 2006 5:22 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  Recently our office received a letter from a woman that had problems with her mother and a negligent nursing home, I thought it would be interesting to read what one of the attorney's wrote back:I am sorry to hear about your mom's treatment. You hit the nail on the head. Tort Reform has made nursing home cases difficult to pursue because of the damages cap. State employees are often incompetent....

• Record Profits Should Equal Compliance

  Michael Howell | October 27, 2006 9:34 AM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  The oil companies have said for years that being forced to comply with strict environmental standards for oil and gas facilities and underground storage tank (UST) sites would "bankrupt the industry". Now that the seven sisters (Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, BP-Amoco-Arco, Sun, and Conoco) from the Standard Oil breakup in 1911 are recombining and substantially eliminating competition they have...

• Indianapolis Hospital administers wrong dose of medication 4 times in one month

  Christen Wiese | October 23, 2006 2:24 PM | 0 CommentsHouston, TX

  An 18-year-old Indianapolis woman was paralyzed two weeks ago at an Indianapolis Hospital after an improperly programmed pain killer pump gave her ten hours of pain killer in one hour. She lost the ability to walk but has slowly regained movement in her legs.She was in the hospital giving birth to her first child. Fortunately the child is in good health. The anesthesiologist that administered...