Few things are worse than suffering injury from a defective drug. You take medicine in order to improve your health, so it can come as a nasty shock to discover that your medicine has been harming you instead. To safeguard patient safety, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that all drugs go through a rigorous testing process before they can be brought to market.
The FDA-mandated testing process helps prevent millions of injuries and deaths every year. However, it cannot guarantee complete patient safety. You may recall seeing an advertisement for a drug that listed a large number of “possible side effects.” There is a good chance that several test subjects suffered from these side effects, but the number of incidents was low enough for the drug to meet FDA approval anyway.
Other defects in the drug can be caused by circumstances that the manufacturer failed to test for. These defects can include:
- Side effects that only accumulate over a long period of time
- Side effects that did not show up in testing
- Side effects resulting from a combination of 2 or more medications
- Side effects that appear due to a previously-undiagnosed condition
In many cases, the drug may not be solely responsible for the suffering you incur. For example, you may have a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor who failed to diagnose a relevant medical condition.
FDA approval does not shield drug manufacturers from lawsuits, nor is it a guarantee that nothing will go wrong. So if you experience defects with over-the-counter or prescription medication, you may have a viable lawsuit. The best way to find this out is by contacting the defective drug attorneys and McWhirter, Bellinger & Associates. We serve patients in Columbia, SC and the surrounding areas. Contact us by calling 1-888-353-5513 today.
