The Dangerous Side of Diabetes Drugs
1.4 million cases of diabetes are diagnosed every year making many Americans a new customer to the diabetic drug market and unfamiliar with the dangers associated with choosing the wrong diabetes drug. Followers of the diabetic community nationwide, are still left with many concerns after the $2.9 billion dollar case that linked the once popular type 2 diabetes drug, Actos, to bladder cancer.
While there are lists of different types of diabetes drugs, all with different purposes and potential side effects, there isn’t as much emphasis on the information, the studies, reports, and recalls that are exposing the risks of these popular diabetes drugs. While drugs for diabetes may be necessary, understanding and communicating the risk of taking these drugs is the responsibility of the drug maker.
Choosing a Diabetes Drug
Many maybe startled to know that most people let their doctor choose their diabetes medications for them. Medical care providers make the choice based on their own personal experiences, and the information available to them about those drugs that is directly given to them by the pharmaceutical company's.
Pharmaceutical companies often forgo long-term testing of new drugs, in favor of short and very decisive clinical trials. Drugs are often able to make it through the FDA clearance process with little known about how they will perform over a decades time.
Invokana Study Exposes Side Effects
Invokana, a popular diabetes drug (according to its maker is the number # prescribed drug in its class), is available to diabetes patients today as an (SGLT) 2 inhibitor prescribed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. It is currently becoming another example to the diabetic community of the risk of taking any drug long term.
Invokana, produced by Johnson & Johnson, was heavily marketed as the drug that could “Turn Things Around.”
However in May of 2017, in a safety communication from the FDA a new risk of the popular diabetes drug was exposed to consumers. After the conclusion of a well respected multi-year clinical trial on the long-term side effects of Invokana, the risk of amputation was deemed a potential side effect of Invokana. It now appears on the Invokana labeling in one of the most serious FDA warnings, known as the Black Box warning. According to the study every 6-8 people out of 1,000 would be at increased risk of amputation by taking Invokana; a risk not previously noted by the manufacturer once before.
Learn more about the Invokana FDA Black Box Warning.
Diabetes Drug Lawsuit
Helping those who have been injured nationwide with their diabetes drug lawsuit is a way by which we advocate for the injured. Pharmaceutical companies have a control on the diabetic medication market and influence many diabetics to a lifestyle of medications even when alternative treatments are available.
As diabetics now depend heavily on many of these medications, their race to create more and more drugs with better appeals to the market increases and concern for drug safety decreases. If you or someone that you love has been harmed by the side effect of a dangerous diabetes drug contact our firm today to learn more about a diabetes drug lawsuit. The pharmaceutical litigation attorneys at our firm have experience in defective drug litigation.