Zantac Lawsuit

Zantac Lawsuit

Researching drug company and regulatory malfeasance for over 16 years
Humanist, humorist

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Judge Hamilton & Co Toss $3M Dolin Verdict


Yesterday's decision from the Seventh Circuit declared "the drugmaker (GSK) can’t be sued under Illinois law for insufficiently warning of suicide risk on a drug’s label, when that label’s language was set by federal regulators."

 Read on...

pre·con·ceived
adjective
(of an idea or opinion) formed before having the evidence for its truth or usefulness.


Mayor Larry Vaughn (left)

Jaws Synopsis

During a beach party at dusk on Amity Island, New England, a young woman, Chrissie Watkins, goes skinny dipping in the ocean. While treading water, she is violently pulled under. The next day, her partial remains are found on shore. The medical examiner's ruling that the death was due to a shark attack leads police chief Martin Brody to close the beaches. Mayor Larry Vaughn overrules him, fearing that the town's summer economy will be harmed. The medical examiner now concurs with the mayor's theory that Watkins was killed in a boating accident.


Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton


On May 30, 2018, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard a plea from GSK with regard to reasons why they don't feel they shouldn't pay a $3million fine handed down to them last year. During the oral arguments, Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton (Pictured above) repeatedly voiced doubts over the issue of so-called “innovator liability,” or the theory that the original makers of a drug – the “innovator” – should be held liable for the effects caused by others’ imitation product. Hamilton stated that it could significantly harm the pharmaceutical industry, and consumers and patients who rely on the medications invented and manufactured by the industry.

Ironically, the actor who played Mayor Larry Vaughn in the movie Jaws, Murray Hamilton, shares the same surname as Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton. To my knowledge, they are not related.

I've been a fan of Jaws, particularly the screenplay, for many years. It bears so many striking similarities to the pharmaceutical industry (the shark) and the advocates that try to highlight wrong-doings, Quint, Brody, and Hooper. 

Yesterday's decision from the Seventh Circuit declared "the drugmaker can’t be sued under Illinois law for insufficiently warning of suicide risk on a drug’s label, when that label’s language was set by federal regulators."

Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton. Circuit Chief Judge Diane P. Wood and Circuit Judge Diane Sykessaid, said, "GSK had presented sufficient evidence time and again through the proceedings – before, during and after trial – to demonstrate it had no control of the drug labeling at the center of the case. Therefore, they said, the lawsuit should have been dismissed." Further, they added, "Court judges erred when they allowed to go to trial a lawsuit brought by Stewart Dolin's widow (Wendy Dolin)"
Former Glaxo CEO, JP Garnier

"There is a legal right for us to go directly to the public"

Nowhere in the Seventh Circuit's panel conclusion does it state that paroxetine wasn't responsible for Stewart Dolin's induced suicide, in fact, it suggests that it did, but claims GSK did enough to warn Stewart, even though the FDA didn't heed that warning. The ruling failed to mention the deposition, shown at the 2017 Dolin trial, by former Glaxo CEO, JP Garnier, in which, when asked, "You can change your label without even getting approval from the FDA, there's a law that allows you to do that, correct?", he answered, "Yes...it's considerably disrupting, that's why most companies go through the FDA first, in practice, but you are right, there is a legal right for us to go directly to the public."

In response to the ruling, Michael Baum, senior partner at Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, stated “We are surprised and disappointed with the court’s ruling and respectfully disagree. We will be exploring Ms Dolin’s options.”

"You go in the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water, our shark."

The FDA has remained silent throughout. They are, it appears, answerable to nobody. With an admission by GSK's former CEO that there is a legal right for GSK to go to the public, ergo, they can bypass the FDA, the question still remains, why didn't they?

GSK, and other pharmaceutical companies are, as we know, in bed with each other. It's a sick, incestuous relationship that puts everyone who ingests a pharmaceutical product or who uses a medical device, at harm - the same harm that Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton used in his defence of the pharmaceutical industry. It would appear that they can be protected from harm but the same rules do not apply to consumers, we simply go in the cage, cage goes in the water, we then go in the water. Remember that next time you pick up your next prescription, folks!

The pharmaceutical and regulatory pools are infested with sharks!

 Afterword:

A Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know... was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Heh.

 They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. Y'know, it's... kinda like ol' squares in a battle like, uh, you see in a calendar, like the Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and that man, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin', and sometimes the shark'd go away... sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then... oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin', the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces.

 Y'know, by the end of that first dawn... lost a hundred men. I dunno how many sharks. Maybe a thousand. I dunno how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland- baseball player, boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up... bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. The young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and come in low and three hours later, a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. Y'know, that was the time I was most frightened, waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a life jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

 Bartholomew Marion Quint ~ Amity Island, MA

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 Bob Fiddaman
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