Xarelto lawsuit filed by Florida widower claims the drug caused husband’s severe internal bleeding and death.
A Florida woman filed the Xarelto lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on June 23, 2014 against Xarelto manufacturers Bayer AG and Janseen Pharmaceuticals. In the suit, she alleges her husband’s use of the blood thinning drug led to severe internal bleeding, causing serious injury and death. The lawsuit details that the plaintiff’s late husband was prescribed Xarelto by his primary care physician on January 10, 2012 to treat his atrial fibrillation and reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis and blood clots. After he began to take the drug, the deceased suffered a subdural hemorrhage, or a bleed outside of the brain. He was hospitalized for several days where he underwent several procedures to try to stop the severe subdural bleeding. On June 28, 2012, the plaintiff’s husband died as a result of internal bleeding complications. The plaintiff alleges that Xarelto was the cause of the hemorrhage and that if her and her husband were made aware of the real risks associated with Xarelto usage, they would have chosen to use one of the safer alternatives that were on the market at the time. Xarelto is considered to be a more dangerous drug than other traditional blood thinners on the market, such as Warfarin, because Xarelto does not have a corresponding antidote. This means that there is no way to reverse the anticoagulant effects of the drug in an emergency so if a patient suffers from an internal bleeding event while taking Xarelto, the bleeding cannot be stopped. In contrast, if a patient is taking Warfarin and suffers from an internal bleeding event, a doctor simply has to administer vitamin K and the patient’s blood will clot again. In the case of the deceased, since there is no antidote to Xarelto, the bleeding could only be curbed through very extreme measures such as a bur hole in his skull and a transfusion of new blood to remove the drug from the system. Recently, many of the federally filed Xarelto lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation, MDL, in the Eastern District of Louisiana. The MDL will enable cases to move quickly through the system and regardless of the consolidation, these are still cases brought individually by each plaintiff and settlements may be different for everyone if they are reached. Originally posted by Marc Goldich on LegalHerald.com. Xarelto Lawsuit – Ball & Bonholtzer Trial Attorney – Los Angeles
