Sunday, March 1, 2009

AstraZeneca Knew of Risks

Internal AstraZeneca reports and e-mails written by company officials show they knew a decade ago that their psychiatric drug Seroquel caused diabetes and major weight gain, plaintiffs' lawyers said Friday after releasing dozens of the previously sealed documents.

Houston attorney Ed Blizzard, one of the lead attorneys representing roughly 15,000 plaintiffs suing the British drugmaker: "They not only failed to warn about the risk of diabetes, but they marketed it as not having that risk."

The plaintiffs claim Seroquel, approved for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, caused diabetes, weight gain and related health problems, from kidney failure and heart attacks to amputations and damage to the pancreas, which makes insulin.

Full Article and Source:
Documents on Seroquel show drugmaker AstraZeneca knew of diabetes risks

More information:
AstraZeneca Knew of Safety Issues With Their Psychiatric Drug

AstraZeneca Seroquel Studies ‘Buried,’ Papers Show

Records: AstraZeneca ignored warning on Seroquel's diabetes risk

Astra documents show Seroquel back-story

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I beleive the makers of Seroquel took their chances -- making billions of dollars and knowing that the eventual fines would be far less than they have profited.

For those who need Seroquel for true mental illness, I feel if given the choice to take Seroquel and feel "normal" -- and knowing they're gambling with side effects, the desire would be to be normal and just hope the side effects don't occur.

Here's the thing -- if the manufacturer knew of the side effectsd, did they release Seroquel too early -- greedy for the profit versus more study to try to stop the side effects?

Probably. Too bad most things in this world boil down to money.

Anonymous said...

It's all about the money profits that's it - the bottom line, lies lies and more lies.