Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1156

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Quinn E.
Drugs giant to face Irish Seroxat lawsuits
The Sunday Business Post 2003 May 26

Full text:

Scores of Irish users of one of the world’s largest-selling drugs are preparing multiparty group lawsuits here against the pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for alleged adverse symptoms suffered after they stopped using the anti-depressant drug Seroxat. Irish claimants are among a 5,500- name database of Seroxat users collated by British personal injury lawyers.

The names of the Irish claimants have been passed to Dublin lawyers in the past month to pursue through the courts here, The Sunday Business Post has learned.

Seroxat,which is among the best selling drugs in the world, is manufactured for world markets in Co Cork.

Claimant numbers have continued to rise after Glaxo updated its Seroxat patient information earlier this month. The Irish Medicines Board said on May 13 that, on the request of Glaxo,the wording on the patient information leaflet would be changed by deleting a line that read: ‘Remember, you cannot become addicted to Seroxat.’

Thousands of people across Ireland and Britain have submitted claims against Glaxo for alleged adverse symptoms that they claim to have experienced after they stopped using the drug. Claims from the Republic have been sent to Peter McDonnell of Peter McDonnell and Associates.

The change of wording on the literature “had strengthened the case’‘, McDonnell claimed. “At the moment we have a sample of people and gathering information from more. We have also consulted with senior counsel.’‘

Glaxo Ireland said there was no evidence that the drug is addictive