Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is. - Norman Cousins

Drug Litigation

Prescription Errors / Mis-filled Prescriptions

Approximately 3% of all prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies contain some type of error. Typically, the error is harmless as it may just be a misspelled name or incorrect address. However, often the error is more serious, and places the patient at risk for a serious health related injury. Such errors may include a physician prescribing the wrong medication, a pharmacy technician improperly recording the prescription, or even the pharmacist dispensing the wrong medication.

As pharmacies and drug stores compete for your business and look for more cost effective ways to fill your prescriptions, safety is often sacrificed. Recently, ABC News reported on a new trend of hiring under trained teenagers by major pharmacies here in Florida to serve as the assistants who input patient data and prescription information into the computers which are relied upon by the pharmacists to verify the prescription information. In one such case currently being litigated in Florida, a teenager working part time in a Walgreen’s Pharmacy erroneously recorded an intended dosage of 0.1 milligrams as 1.0 milligrams. As a result, the pediatric patient received 10x the normal dosage and suffered a devastating seizure.

Defective Drugs / Pharmaceutical Litigation

Every year thousands of people die or become extremely ill from adverse reactions and side effects to prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Drugs such as Prozac, Fen-Phen, Vioxx, hormone replacement therapies (HRT), vaccines and antibiotics have been the focus of thousands of lawsuits and some major consumer protection legal victories.

In the lucrative world of manufacturing and distributing prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical companies are willing to go to extreme measures to gain an advantage over their competitors. Time and time again, major drug companies have been caught putting profits before safety. Recently, the maker of the powerful painkiller, OxyContin, and three of its executives, pleaded guilty to misleading the public as to the addictive nature of OxyContin. The manufacturer and those responsible agreed to pay $634.5 million dollars in fines for claiming the drug was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications. According to the DEA, at least 464 deaths were related to the use of OxyContin during a one period in 2002.

If you, or someone in your family, have been injured as a consequence of taking a prescription medication, please contact the attorneys of Levine & Glassman to learn more about your rights and discuss the potential of pursing a lawsuit against those responsible for your injuries.