Product Liability Lawyer Blog

September 6, 2016

Study: 2 Percent Testosterone Gel May Increase Sex Drive, Energy

Despite what the many commercials and magazine ads tell us, there is very little known about how testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) affects older men. These ads tell us that taking testosterone will increase sex drive, increase energy, stop weight gain, increase muscle mass and even cure depression. Essentially, the drug companies tell prospective patients that if you take testosterone replacement drugs, you will feel like a much younger man.

The truth is that most doctors do not really know what a normal hormone level is for a man in his 60s. The reason for this is because there haven’t been many studies. They did not have to do many studies, because testosterone hormone was never approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat these signs of normal male aging, as the commercials suggest. In reality, the drug was approved in the 1970s to treat a relatively rare medical condition known as hypogonadism. This is condition where a young patient has an extremely low testosterone level and is having developmental disorders. Continue reading

September 4, 2016

Hosford v. BRK Brands, Inc.: Products Liability Cases

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In Hosford v. BRK Brands, Inc., a case from the Alabama Supreme Court, a four-year-old girl was killed in fire in her family’s mobile home in May 2011. Her mother and other surviving family members filed a personal injury lawsuit with a wrongful death claim against the maker of the two smoke detectors that were installed in the home at the time of her tragic death.

They made various claims that are common in products liability cases, such as failure to warn, negligence and claims of wantonness. Failure to warn of a known danger is one of the more common claims, because it is an allegation the maker of a particular product was aware or should have been aware of a certain type of danger when the product was being used for its intended purpose and failed to warn the plaintiff of that potential danger. Continue reading

September 2, 2016

Patient Satisfaction following Total Knee Replacement Surgery

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

A total knee replacement has become one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States, and these operations, along with total hip replacement procedures routinely rank high year after year. In most cases, having a joint replaced with an artificial one is considered an elective procedure, but it basically comes down to a quality of life issue. At some point, a patient will get tired of living with severe arthritis and opt for having the surgery. As we have seen over the past decades, that certain point in a patient’s life is being reached at a much younger age.

One of the reasons more and more patients are choosing to undergo the surgery each year is because more advanced techniques have been developed, and studies show that this means better outcomes for patients, shorter recovery times, and an overall increased satisfaction among patients. What makes these study results interesting is that the patient satisfaction portion is usually based on information provided by the surgeons and not the patients themselves. Continue reading

August 30, 2016

Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) Market Up Despite FDA Warnings

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

According to a recent news feature from Yahoo Finance, industry experts are predicting that there will be a roughly 4 percent increase in the world testosterone replacement therapy market over the next handful of years. While this may seem like a good thing for the testosterone hormone industry, it is actually a relatively modest rise as compared to the huge increases we have seen in the past decade or so.

Prior to a huge marketing effort from the drug companies that manufacture testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) hormone, the drug was only used to treat a very rare condition known as hypogonadism. Hypogonadism is a rare condition that results in a patient not developing enough testosterone hormone for proper development or proper function. These numbers are extremely low. Continue reading

August 28, 2016

GMA Co-Anchor Talks Getting Hip Replacement at 47

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Many people think of getting a total hip replacement operation as something that for the most part, only elderly people have to worry about. While it is true that some younger people break one or both hips in a catastrophic accident, in years past, it is true that most patients in the United States getting a total hip replacement operation were generally older people.

However, as discussed in a recent news feature from Page Six, Lara Spencer, who is a co-anchor on ABC’s flagship morning program “Good Morning America,” needed a hip replacement at the relatively young age of 47 and decided to talk about her medical issues with the audience. She first told the audience, when she first was told she needed to have the operation, she chose not to do anything or tell anyone. The reason was that she believed this was an “old person’s problem,” and she couldn’t believe it was happening to her. Continue reading

August 25, 2016

Applebaum v. Target Corp: Products Liability Cases

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In Applebaum v. Target Corp, plaintiff was injured while riding a bicycle she purchased at defendant’s big box retail store. She claimed the reason she was injured was because of a defective brake on the bike that was resold to her after another customer had returned the item. She claims the bike was returned to the store because of the defective brake, negligently repaired, and then resold to her, thus causing her to suffer a personal injury.

According to court records from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, this case deals with the issue of whether plaintiff was injured while riding her bicycle due to a defective bicycle or due to operator error. Continue reading

August 22, 2016

Possible New Way to Stop Bleeding Disorder Caused by Pradaxa

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Patients who suffer from a serious medical condition must take a blood thinner or anticlotting agent to prevent the formation of blood clots that can be deadly. Patients who suffer from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and various other conditions need to take these medications to prevent potentially deadly medical conditions from occurring.

Blood clotting is an important bodily function. It is a reaction in the body to stop bleeding. This can be from internal bleeding or external bleeding, such as when a person gets a cut on his or finger. People who suffer hemophilia do not clot normally, and this is why even a small cut can lead to serious blood loss. Continue reading

August 18, 2016

Plaintiff’s Lawyer Calls Xarelto Clinical Trials Akin to a Science Project

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

There is no question that Xarelto has been linked to a lot of serious bleeding disorders, many of which resulted in death. There are many reasons the drug has proven so dangerous to users, but a lot of the problems are result of the reportedly negligent manner in which Bayer and Janssen Pharmaceuticals performed the safety testing and informed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Results.

According to a recent news feature from Forbes, one plaintiff’s lawyer that handles Xarelto injury lawsuits states that these experiments were conducted in the same manner that young students would do in an elementary school science fair when making their projects. Continue reading

August 15, 2016

Growing Cartilage in Lab May Take Place of Artificial Joint Devices

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

We have heard a lot recently about how stem cells can be used to help patients who would typically require the implantation of an artificial joint such as a hip or knee. Using one of these methods, doctors are able to remove bone marrow from the patient and use the stem cells in the bone marrow to attempt to regrow bone tissue and joint material inside the patient. While this method may work, it is only one method doctors are using with stem cells, but there are others.

In a recent news feature form HNGN, doctors are now using stem cells to regrow cartilage in a laboratory and then implant that it into the patient. Since the cartilage was grown using the patient’s own stem cells, the new cartilage will have the same DNA as the patient. This should mean that the body will not see the new cartilage as a foreign substance, so there should be no risk of rejection, which is always a major risk in an organ transplant or event the implanting of an artificial joint like a knee or hip. Continue reading

August 11, 2016

Testosterone Therapy Can Cause Prostate Tumor to Grow

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) has become increasingly common over the past decade. In the past, there had been little interest in giving patients testosterone hormones unless they had a relatively rare medical condition known as hypogonadism. This condition involves a patient with an extremely low testosterone count caused by a defective hormone gland and is causing developmental disorders in younger patients. In fact, this was the only medical condition for testosterone hormone was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and still remains the only approved use.

While the vast majority of the millions of men taking testosterone replacement therapy on a regular basis do not suffer from hypogonadism, the reason they can get the drug involves a gray area in FDA regulations that allows a doctor to prescribe a drug for what is known as off-label use. While this is technically allowed, we have seen recent cases where doctors are being fined and subject to discipline for allowed these so-called Low T clinics to prescribe patients testosterone hormone using their respective DEA numbers without them having actually examined the patients. Continue reading