Baxter Health Care Corp. and Teva Parenteral Medicines were asked to pay a mere $1.7 million to settle a lawsuit filed against them by a Nevada man who contracted hepatitis C after undergoing a routine colonoscopy. The two drug giants ignored the offer, according to Robert Eglet, the plaintiff’s attorney. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/may/07/jurors-reach-verdict-over-hepatitis-c-damages/
Well, hindsight is 20/20, as they say. That’s because last Friday a Clark County District Court jury in Nevada awarded Henry Chanin and his wife a half a billion dollars in punitive damages. Teva was ordered to fork over $356 million and Baxter was hit for $144 million, a whopping $500 million total.
That’s the largest award in Nevada’s history.
The Chanins’ complaint against Teva and Baxter alleged product liability, negligence and disregard of known and accepted medical procedures, resulting in Henry Chanin contracting hepatitis C from exposure to contaminated vials of the anesthetic propofol. Baxter was the distributor and Teva the manufacturer of the drug.
This hepatitis case isn’t the only litigation that Baxter has pending against it. The drug maker also faces a barrage of lawsuits stemming from hundreds of people dying after taking tainted heparin, the blood thinner, that had been imported from China in 2008.
Both Baxter and Teva said they plan to appeal the $500 million jury verdict in Nevada, which stems from a hepatitis C outbreak two years ago.
Patients were exposed to HIV and hepatitis strains C and B when single-dose vials of anesthesia medication, propofol, were used on multiple patients. Nurse anesthetists were re-used syringes to withdraw medication from the single-dose vial, creating a back flow of blood resulting in contamination. http://www.lvrj.com/news/teva-plans-appeal-of-hepatitis-verdict-93223949.html
Teva maintains that it has done nothing wrong.
“Teva is reviewing the full judgment and continues to believe that the evidence shows the company acted responsibly,” the drug maker said in a statement.
“The label for its propofol product clearly states that it is for single patient use only and that aseptic procedures should be used at all times. “ Teva said. “Further, the company believes that the Jury should have been allowed to hear all of the evidence in this case. Teva believes that the evidence clearly showed that if the plaintiff contracted hepatitis as alleged, it was because a properly labeled product was blatantly misused at the clinic in question. Teva believes that there are numerous grounds for appeal, and plans to contest the verdict vigorously.”
Anywhere from nine to 114 patients were infected with the incurable disease. In addition to Chanin, Eglet represents 40 more patients who contracted hepatitis C and another 4,500 who were among the 50,000 people who had gotten colonoscopies at the Nevada clinic in question and were notified that they needed to be tested. Not the kind of message you ever want to get.
Chanin’s story is particularly heartbreaking, which is perhaps why the Nevada jury was so generous. He is the headmaster of The Meadows School, a private school founded by Carolyn Goodman, wife of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.
Chanin went to the Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center in June 2006 for a colonoscopy, and in addition to having that routine procedure he contracted hepatitis C.
During a four-week trial that started April 19, Chanin said that he and his wife had stopped having sexual relations, for fear that he would spread the disease to her.
”A $1.7 million offer of judgment to settle was ignored by the defense bringing the Chanin’s to this point,” Eglet said in a press release.
“At the core of this case is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies as well as that of the health care professionals,” he said. “The conduct of the doctors and nurses demonstrated a disregard for human life in the reuse of contaminated vials and syringes. Equally, the pharmaceutical companies were responsible for providing 50 ml vials of propofol to ambulatory centers that would require no more than 10ml to 20 ml bottles because profit dictated the decision to do so. The larger size vials encouraged multi-dosing becoming weapons of mass infection. The result is nearly immeasurable.”
Before Friday’s verdict, Henry and his wife had already been awarded compensatory damages of $3.25 million and $1.85 million, respectively.
I’ll be writing more about the details of this case, and the significance of the vial sizes, this week.
