Kentucky Lipitor lawsuits are underway to protect the rights of patients who may have developed type 2 diabetes in conjunction with taking the popular anti-cholesterol medication. If you or a loved one have type 2 diabetes you suspect may be related to Lipitor use, attorneys can help you review your legal options.
What Is Lipitor?
Lipitor is the trade name of a medication called Atorvastatin that belongs to a class of medications called statins. Statins lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting the formation of an enzyme that mediates the formation of cholesterol within the liver. Cholesterol is the primary material in the plaque that builds up on arterial walls, causing heart attacks and strokes.
In 1996, when the pharmaceutical manufacturing company Pfizer first marketed Lipitor in the United States, the cholesterol-lowering medication was touted as a wonder drug. Lipitor went on the become the most prescribed medication in the world with annual sales toping $12 billion.
From the start, however, Lipitor and other statins may have been associated with serious possible side effects that include debilitating muscle and nerve problems as well as an increased risk of dangerously high serum glucose levels. In February 2012, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Pfizer to update the Lipitor label to alert health care professionals and prospective patients of the medication’s link with type 2 diabetes. If you developed type 2 diabetes after taking Lipitor according to your physician’s instructions, attorneys can help you assess what if any avenues of legal redress may be open to you. Kentucky Lipitor lawsuits may be able to help you recover damages for the cost of medical treatment, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
Kentucky Lipitor Lawsuits
Kentucky Lipitor lawsuits can proceed in a number of different ways. One avenue frequently pursued by attorneys in this kind of legal action is the consolidation of a number of similar suits into a single multi-district litigation (MDL). In such an action, Kentucky Lipitor lawsuits would be heard in the same court as lawsuits originating in other states. Consolidating legal actions in this manner helps to prevent duplicate and inconsistent resolution. MDLs are not the same as class action suits in which a lawsuit is filed by attorneys on behalf of a large group of people belonging to a single class who share similar circumstances and injuries. In MDLs, plaintiffs retain their individual lawsuits and are not part of a class.
In March 2013, a South Carolina woman filed a complaint against Pfizer when she developed type 2 diabetes after initiating Lipitor treatment. Other South Carolina plaintiffs followed suit, and in April 2013, these plaintiffs filed a request to consolidate their suits into a single MDL docket. In August 2013, however, federal judges denied the plaintiffs’ request to consolidate the cases. The reason the panel gave for denying the request was that there aren’t enough cases at the present time to warrant MDL consolidation.
Lipitor Court Cases
Some legal analysts think that there may never be sufficient grounds for hearing Lipitor suits as MDL actions, although they may eventually be consolidated into a class action suit. For one thing, though type 2 diabetes is a serious disease, it is not a debilitating disease in many instances. Since this is the case, settlements typically will not be large. For another thing, attorneys may find it very difficult to prove that Lipitor was the cause of the disease since from a medical standpoint, people with high cholesterol levels are already at risk for high serum glucose levels. This does not mean you don’t have grounds for Kentucky Lipitor lawsuits, however, if you have been injured by taking Lipitor.
