Pradaxa Deaths Increase Lawsuits

Pradaxa is a blood thinning medication that was introduced relatively recently as an alternative to older blood thinning drugs. However, a number of patients have experienced complications and side effects as a result of their use of the drug, and a number of them have filed lawsuits against the manufacturers of the drug. The Food and Drug Administration has been prompted by the growing number of lawsuits as well as public advocacy groups to take a second look at the medication, which can have side effects that include uncontrolled internal bleeding. This can be life-threatening in many cases, and one of the factors that makes Pradaxa so dangerous is the fact that it is not known what will stop Pradaxa-related internal bleeding.

Pradaxa settlements sought

Patients who have filed lawsuits are seeking compensation for Pradaxa injuries, as side effects can become extraordinarily costly to a patient. More than 300 reports of uncontrolled internal bleeding as a result of Pradaxa use were filed with the Food and Drug Administration in just three months after the medication was approved in October of 2010. A year later, in October 2011, the medical journal Therapeutics published an article questioning the safety of the medication and suggesting that there could have been major flaws in clinical trials associated with the medication.

The Food and Drug Administration announced two months after this article was published that they would be seriously looking into the Pradaxa death toll in order to analyze the risk of bleeding from Pradaxa use. However, the FDA’s announcement about the medication thus far has only really acknowledged that bleeding is a risk with any blood thinning medication. The organization has agreed to try to determine whether Pradaxa is more dangerous than similar medications, and whether something about the drug makes patients more susceptible to side effects than other blood thinners.

Pradaxa bleeding has no antidote

Pradaxa is an expensive drug, manufactured by German drug makers Boehringer Ingelheim. The company claims that Pradaxa is more effective than other blood thinners because it requires less monitoring and fewer follow-up appointments. However, patients are discovering that Pradaxa side effects can be serious and even deadly. Unlike other medications, where the administration of vitamin K or other antidotes can suppress internal bleeding, there doesn’t seem to be an antidote to the bleeding caused by Pradaxa.

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