Litigants in Lipitor product liability lawsuits, precisely the type of people we fight for here at Reich & Binstock, may see their cases transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of South Carolina. The panel took up at its Feb. 6 hearing a motion to consolidate before one federal trial court Lipitor lawsuits from a dozen states.
“The purposes of this transfer or ‘centralization’ process,” according to panel records, “are to avoid duplication of discovery, to prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, and to conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary. Transferred actions not terminated in the transferee district are remanded to their originating transferor districts by the Panel at or before the conclusion of centralized pretrial proceedings.”
Lipitor lawsuit patients claimed in their brief submitted to the panel in April 2013 that “the defendant manufactured, marketed, distributed, supplied, promoted and/or sold Lipitor, which is defective and unreasonably dangerous in that it causes diabetes.” As a result of marketing a product with insufficient warnings as to the increased risks about which the manufacturer, Pfizer, either knew or should have known, plaintiffs were injured. The victims then experienced pain and suffering and financial loss.
Although the FDA approved Lipitor in 1996, it was not until 2012 that the FDA issued a statement on updated Lipitor labeling that read, “The FDA is also aware of studies showing that patients being treated with statins may have a small increased risk of increased blood sugar levels and of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus.”
A Canadian study published in 2013 in the British Medical Journal showed that among statin drugs, Lipitor posed the highest increased risk of new-onset diabetes.
Take it from science. Take it from personal experiences of the victims. Take it from attorneys like us with considerable skill and expertise in trying pharmaceutical injury cases. Plaintiffs in these Lipitor lawsuits have been wronged. At Reich & Binstock, we do everything in our power to make it right, whether the cases are centralized in South Carolina or are tried in any other court in the nation.
People who developed new-onset diabetes after having used Lipitor may be entitled to compensation.
