InjuryBoard Houston Archives

• Drug-eluting heart stents pose health risk

  Christen Wiese | November 27, 2006 5:08 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  Patients with drug-eluting stents placed in the heart to avoid heart attacks and blocked arteries now face a new problem. It has been found that the placement of the drug-eluting stent in the heart to avoid heart attacks and clogged arteries is doing the very thing it was designed not to do. The stent was designed in the 1980s to push open clogged arteries. It was placed in a procedure called...

• FDA Ends Ban on Silicone Implants

  Tracy Beard | November 21, 2006 12:12 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ended its 14-year ban on the cosmetic use of silicone breast implants, despite lingering safety concerns from some health officials.After an indepth scientific study, the FDA approved the marketing of silicone gel-filled breast implants made by two manufacturers for breast reconstruction in women of all ages and breast augmentation in women ages...

• Arcoxia Merck's new Vioxx?

  Tiffany Farr | November 20, 2006 4:25 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  On November 13, 2006, the first trial studies for Merck's Arcoxia were released to mixed reviews from American doctors and scientists. Touted to be a new and improved "Vioxx" for use in arthritis relief, Arcoxia is a cox-2 inhibitor like Vioxx, Bextra, and Celebrex. Cox-2 inhibitors are non-steroidal inflammatory drugs that directly target the cox-2 enzyme which causes inflammation and pain. ...

• Naproxen and Increased Risk of Heart Disease?

  Dian Rosier | November 17, 2006 3:48 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  Amid recent claims that a new class of drugs called COX-2 inhibitors (which includes naproxen, marketed and sold as Aleve) may cause strokes and heart attacks, researchers are grappling with a new study and its implications. In a study that included 2,500 elderly volunteers that were given Celebrex, naproxen or a placebo, 8.25 percent of naproxen recipients had a significant cardiovascular...

• Tamiflu Warning Label Updated

  Esmeralda Fuentes | November 16, 2006 10:06 AM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  Recently the FDA added new precautions to the Tamiflu influenza drug. Tamiflu is a drug that is used to reduce the symptoms of influenza. After causing abnormal behavior on more than 100 recent cases on Japanese patients the warning label has been updated.The Tamiflu is causing patients, normally children to have delirium, hallucinations and other psychiatric behavior. The recent reports have...

• Taxus Recall

  Vickye Young | November 14, 2006 3:44 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: Miscellaneous

  Boston Scientific Corp., the largest maker of heart stents, expanded a voluntary recall of its drug- coated Taxus devices because of possible defects in the delivery system. The recall will involve approximately 85,000 Taxus stents. About 200 Taxus stents were also recalled.The company first described the problems with Taxus publicly in April and quickly instituted changes to the balloon design....

• FDA Releases Warning about Antidepressant Lamictal

  Tiffany Farr | November 10, 2006 11:58 AM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  The FDA has released a warning regarding the antidepressant Lamictal which may cause birth defects in babies exposed during the first 3 months of pregnancy.Lamictal, an anti-seizure drug, has become an effective tool in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Preliminary research finds that pregnant women who continue taking the drug run higher risks of giving birth to babies with cleft lips and...

• BP Caught Jury Tampering

  John Ghezzi | November 08, 2006 5:42 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: Wrongful Death

  Election day is often a good time for Republicans and corporate America to reveal their true nature to the American public. While with one face Janus is paying enormous sums of money to bash the greedy and unethical trial lawyers in their campaign advertisements, the other face is caught committing a "stunt" that only a defense attorney could say was not jury tampering with a straight face.Eva...

• More lawsuits for Ortho Evra patch filed in San Francisco

  Christen Wiese | November 06, 2006 5:09 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  More lawsuits have been filed in the San Francisco Superior Court against Ortho-McNeill Pharmaceutical Co., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of the Ortho Evra birth control patch.One of the cases filed in the San Francisco court alleges that 43 women suffered health problems such as blood clots from the use of Ortho Evra. The second lawsuit contends that a 25-year-old woman...

• GlaxoSmithKline and Paxil Under Fire

  John Ghezzi | November 01, 2006 5:23 PM | 0 Comments
  Category: FDA & Prescription Drugs

  GlaxoSmithKline agreed to settle for $63.8 million dollars a class action lawsuit in which class members contended that GSK promoted the treatment of children and adolescents with its antidepressant Paxil while simultaneously withholding negative information about the drug's safety and effectiveness. This is just the latest in an avalanche of bad news for GSK and consumers regarding Paxil.The...