Texas Injury Law Blog

(Washington, D.C.) Even though the diabetes drug "Avandia" was implicated in an estimated 83,000 heart attacks between 1999 and 2007, the consumer "protection" agency of the federal government - the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - still allowed the drug to be prescribed and used freely throughout the U.S.; so says a just-released Senate Committee report publicized tonight on national network television newscasts.

According to the Washington Post, Avandia brought in revenues of $2,200,000,000 in 2006 for its manufacturer, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), making Avandia the company's 3rd-best-selling drug that year.

After reviewing more than one-quarter million pages of documents, the Senate Committee concluded that "GSK was aware of the possible cardiac risks associated with Avandia years before such evidence became public..."

Yet, instead of warning patients sufficiently and promptly alerting the FDA of the problems, the Committee found that GSK bosses instead intimidated independent doctors and concentrated on manipulating the findings about Avandia causing increasing risk of cardiovascular events. Said the report, GSK even attempted to minimize the good news about the positive effect - reducing cardiovascular risks - that its rival's pharmaceutical, ACTOS, had demonstrated. (Senate Committee report, @ pp.14-15.)

Outlined in a black box, GSK's website said this about Avandia:

"WARNING: CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE AND MYOCARDIAL ISCHEMIA"

In that warning box, GSK goes on to warn of -

• the need to monitor carefully for heart failure symptoms after Avandia dosage increases;

• its recommendation that symptomatic heart failure patients avoid Avandia; and

• Avandia's relationship to angina or heart attack.

Wal-Mart was forced to pay nearly $1,000,000 to a client of San Antonio-area personal injury accident attorney Virgil Yanta, after the world's largest company lost its Supreme Court appeal of a customer's Dallas trial court's judgment. After earlier unsuccessfully appealing Wal-Mart Stores Texas, L.P. v. Crosby to the Dallas Court of Appeals, the world's largest corporation finally wrote its check for $996,225.72 to its former customer recently, buying its peace and closing the case.

In the wee morning hours of June 13, 2004, as the customer shopped the beverages aisle, a shelf-stocker driving a pallet-jack stacked high with juices rounded a corner and ran into the man, pushing him up against the shelving. The customer left the store unassisted, walking under his own power and then driving himself home. However, when his back pain increased as the days went by, the customer and his wife both were unsuccessful in their repeated attempts to convince Wal-Mart to accept responsibility and pay for the necessary medical care - forcing the hurting customer to rely on emergency room visits and little else.

After being completely stonewalled for months - and even being accused of faking his claim - the frustrated customer eventually retained injury and claims attorney and litigator Virgil Yanta and his Yanta Law Firm of Boerne, Texas. Yanta took the case to court, winning a judgment against the Arkansas-based enterprise on May 19, 2008, following a brief trial. Despite calling only the client, the client's wife and one other witness to the stand, Yanta succeeded in getting what may be among the largest recoveries ever actually paid by Wal-Mart in the Lone Star State.